


the kicker

by vaenire



Category: Fast and the Furious Series, xXx (Movies)
Genre: Amnesiac Letty, Crossover, F/M, Family Drama, M/M, Multi, Twins, post-Fast and Furious 6, post-xXx 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2019-08-25 18:59:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16666417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaenire/pseuds/vaenire
Summary: The old Toretto house held a lot of history-- and bringing Letty back into that, reintroducing her into their lives, made it inevitable to relive it all. The good, the bad and the unspoken.//“We just,” Mia intervened sharply, “don’t talk about him.”Brian’s expression was even and dark. “Why not?”Dom breathed in a deep breath, releasing it through his mouth before looking Brian in the eye. “Xander died about twenty years ago.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hate to be a kicker,  
> I always long for peace,  
> But the wheel that squeaks the loudest,  
> Is the one that gets the grease.

Dom had asked “You remember this?”

And she had said, “It feels like home.” It had been a relief to be able to say that, in a quiet moment in the backyard of the Toretto house.

As she sat on Dom’s lap at the head of the table, Tej and Han to her left, Mia and Brian with little baby Jack to her right, and Roman at the other end of table, she realized she wasn’t lying—surrounded by friendly faces, that belonged to people who cared about her despite being entirely unfamiliar to her. It did feel like a home. She had yet to determine if it felt like  _ her _ home, but it was nice regardless.

So, she wasn’t lying, and Dom did smile at her answer—but it was a sad smile, and Letty could see that it wasn’t the answer he was looking for. Better to tell him the truth and disappoint him up front, Letty supposed.

Letty couldn’t tell if the conversation purposefully skirted around her, or if she wasn’t expected to be very chatty. Very little  conversation was directed toward her, and Letty couldn’t help but notice the awkward glances the others sent between the her and Han, who sat far  down the table, elbows simultaneously propped on the table and held close to his body.

Mia was seated to their left, Brian on her other side and their chairs as close as physically possible with Jack on Mia’s lap. Brian’s arm over her shoulders, protective, head bent toward his son as Mia fed him. Letty felt a pang of guilt, one of  _ many _ recently—it was because of her that Mia was taken, and that Giselle was hurt. She was the one making Dom sad, making him mourn her all over again.

\--

After the homecoming barbecue quieted down, and the team started breaking off to their different ways, Brian and Mia gathered up the plates and headed to the kitchen. Hesitating for a second, Letty grabbed a few of the condiments off the table and tailed them.

Mia had already begun to fill the ancient basin sink, sudzing it up to wash the dishes. She noticed Letty sliding the condiments into the fridge. “Oh,” she said, clearly surprised to see Letty in the kitchen, “did you want to help clean up?”

Brian looked up from where he was fishing some ratty towels out of a cupboard and smiled that brilliant smile that she was already familiar with. She was still figuring him out, piecing together how he fit in with the rest of them, but she could see how that smile probably eased his way in.

“You can dry the dishes,” Brian said, throwing her the towels. “I’ll put ‘em away.”

Letty slid in between the two of them, glad to be included yet unable to shake the feeling that she wasn’t assimilating back into her old life the way everyone expected. It wasn’t hard to figure out that it she wasn’t part of their routine, and couldn’t figure out how to fit in more naturally. 

The kitchen was too small with Mia at the sink, Letty at her elbow and Brian on Letty’s other side-- and Letty dried too slowly, falling behind as Brian swiftly worked through the cupboards. 

She was grateful to their politeness, and how they seamlessly slowed down so she could keep pace better.

In return, Letty politely pretended not to notice when Brian snuck a kiss on Mia’s neck when he slid behind her to put away the utensils.

Just as Brian put away the last dish, Tej and Roman shuffled into the cramped kitchen to say their goodbyes. It was almost comedic to see the two of them, so well-dressed and polished, and hugging Brian, Mia and Letty in the dingy kitchen.

“You aren’t going too far away now, are you?” Mia asked.

Tej held his hands up, cocking his head to the side and reassuring her, “No, no we’re staying in the neighborhood for a while.” He glanced over his shoulder with a sly smile as Dom leaned against the kitchen’s door frame, Jack in his arms. 

“Yeah, we gotta keep an eye on this boy,” Rome said, squeezing up against the fridge to make room for Dom, who was murmuring and reaching for Mia. She wiped the counter quickly and dropped the rag beside the sink before taking the baby from Dom. 

Tej smirked, fist bumping Brian and ticking his chin up at Mia. “I’m gonna get going—but you call if you ever need anything, aight?”

“Got it,” Brian grinned.

“You too, girl,” Tej added, pointing at Letty with a smile as he slid out the door.

Letty just smiled back, silent and unsure.

Dom stopped Tej for a moment as he made his way out, but Letty couldn’t hear the exchange over Roman squeezing back in to coo over Jack. Letty figured Roman was the godfather and not experienced with young children, but enthusiastic nonetheless.

“Why don’t we go to the living room?” Mia suggested, looking to Brian to help usher Roman out. The three of them inched out into the living room, baby in tow. They left only Dom and Letty, leaning against the counter and door jamb respectively. He smiled at her warmly, crossing his arms and waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, rather turning to look out the window over the sink, he crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge.

“Beer?” he asked, glasses already clinking.

“Nah.”

He hummed, fridge closing and a cap popping as he opened his own can.

The thing about Dom was that he was  _ genuine _ —he  _ genuinely _ threw himself off a car to catch her, not knowing that there would be anything to break their fall, and it was genuine every time he checked on her—and Letty didn’t know what to do with that just yet. Those warm smiles felt like they were given so freely, but Letty couldn’t trust that they really were so free. She was waiting for the other foot to drop, even as she kicked herself for being so cold.

The kitchen floor creaked, announcing someone’s arrival. Letty, momentarily relieved to have something to break the tension building in the kitchen air, turned to the door and found Han. He was leaning against the fridge and looking entirely strung out—hair unkept and shirt an absolute mess, even more so than during the barbecue. He looked straight past Letty, straight at Dom with dead eyes.  

“Tej said you wanted to talk?” he asked, voice inflecting the minimum necessary to make it a question. Dom smiled—genuine, once again, even as it was lined with sadness—and nodded. He glanced at Letty quickly.

“Let’s go outside,” Dom said, herding Han out the back door to the back porch. Left on her own in the kitchen, Letty bit her lip and hesitated for only a moment before inching toward the kitchen door, leaning toward the porch door enough to overhear their conversation.

“…where you’re going?” she heard Dom ask.

“I…” Han hesitated, or mumbled something, “Always on Tokyo.”

Dom hummed tersely, and Letty assumed he was taking a swig of his beer, mulling over his answer. “Stay with us a few days, until you’re ready to go,” Dom offered.

“That’s too much to ask,” Han protested.

“Not for family it’s not.”

There was a long pause. Softer, so that Letty had to strain to hear him, Han said, “I can’t believe she’s…” and swallowed the end of the sentence.

Nothing was said for a long moment, and Letty briefly considered taking a peek to see what they were doing, but she restrained herself. She didn’t want anyone in the living room to see her spying.

“Stay with us a few days. Get your plan set.” There was no protest this time, or any verbal response, but the knob on the door jostled and Letty scrambled to look like she was doing anything other than eavesdropping.  

The two came in shoulder to shoulder, Han’s eyes on the ground as they passed the kitchen.

Letty didn’t know if she had known Giselle once upon a time, but she had heard her name whispered at dinner and the whole trip back from London, often paired with cautious glances in Han’s direction. Letty herself didn’t know what to do about the situation, or if there even was anything for her to do. Giselle died while the crew was trying to get Letty back, and Letty didn’t know if they made a fair trade. Han surely didn’t think so—he wouldn’t even look at Letty.

Dom interrupted her thoughts. “Hey, I’m just gonna track down an air mattress for Han, then I wanna show you the garage, okay?”

“Okay.”

He retreated into the living room, leading Han upstairs.

Again, alone in the kitchen, the sounds of Roman still cooing over Jack drifting in the air. It was stuffy in the old kitchen—they had some work around the house to do before it was quite livable again—so she decided to wait outside. The fresh air would do her good.  

The bug repellent torches burned low, the sunset and flames leaving the yard in a soft amber glow. Without the noise and bustle of earlier, Letty surveyed the space: the garage and driveway, the odds and ends of car parts left along the side of the garage a long time ago. A waterproof box was nestled against the garage wall and back fence. An old muffler and some hubcaps were stacked atop it. Curious, Letty got a closer look.

It was a plastic container, about three feet long and two feet tall with a clasped lid. It looked like it had sat right here for a decade or two, judging by the style and wear. Letty checked over her shoulder carefully before slowly removing the car parts sitting on top and cautiously unclasping the lid.

A few old plastic bags were thrown into the box, covered in a layer of fine sediment and holes gnawed into them. She picked one up and shook the dirt off. It was a bag full of clothes, and she recognized what was probably another bag of jewelry. She took a close look,—there were tank tops and jeans, shorts of various styles. Another glance in the box and she spotted a pair of thick-soled shoes. It looked like there was a full wardrobe in the box, from maybe twenty years ago.

Another look, and a nudge to move the other bags out of the way and she spotted the black coarse surface of a skateboard. She took hold of the end and pulled, shifting the other contents until the skateboard came free.

The wood was in bad shape and the polychrome orange-red wheels were chalk full of dirt, but it was a solid board. There was a lot of custom work—the wheels had been replaced, and new tape, and when she flipped it over the underside was decorated with what looked like a sharpie outline and cheap acrylic paint. It was a blue star with flames, shaded with the skill of a dedicated middle schooler.

It wasn’t surprising to Letty that a Toretto would put so much work into customizing their ride, even if it was from a time before Dom was old enough for a license. Still, the drawing made the back of her neck tickle, a weird sensation at her temple brought her to full attention as she peered down at the board in her hands. She remembered this board, for some reason it stuck out in the general darkness of her youth. She remembered it, but nothing  _ about  _ it. The memory was there, just barely out of reach. She grit her teeth and  _ focused _ , wanting more than anything to just remember  _ something _ .

Defeated and none too happy for it, she gave in. Still, she  _ would _ remember, and she resolved to remember it all on her own.

Checking the back door once more to see that no one was coming, Letty replaced the bags of clothes and clasped the lid shut, quickly piling the parts back on top. She took the board in hand, getting one more good look at the painting underneath before stowing it behind the box.

Not a second after she strolled back to the porch did Dom come out the back door.

“Let’s take a look, huh?” he said, and that warm smile that was too genuine too fast for Letty was back in place.  

Letty followed him into the garage. She stayed near the door and waited for him to flip on the light. When he did, the bulbs buzzed from little use over the past few years. Sitting just feet from Letty was a classic Dodge Challenger, a little dirty like everything else in the property, but beautifully restored nonetheless. She’d seen it in the profile Shaw had put together on Toretto, and she knew the story. It was the car his Dad died in, and it was the car he had escaped the cops in. The report didn’t mention that it was restored.  

Seeing it in pictures was different than running her hand over its’ frame, which she did now. It was a beautiful car, lovingly restored from now  _ two _ totalings.

A million comments and questions flew through her head at once, leaving her speechless. She bent and peered into the passenger side, marveling at the interior detailing before walking around to its trunk, around Dom’s side and running her hand across the hood. She knew Dom was watching her appreciate the vehicle, leaning his elbow over the driver side door; she let him have the moment.

“Why don’t you hop in, she probably needs a walk around the block,” he said.

Letty took a fraction of a second to get to the passenger door and open it. The interior was even more impressive up close.  

“You did this?” she asked as he turned the key, the engine purring to life. Of course she meant to ask more elegantly—you restored this? She meant to comment on the details, the accuracy, but all that translated into ‘you did this’ when she opened her mouth.

“My Dad found her in a junk yard and restored her first,” Dom said, flexing his fingers on the wheel, “and I restored her against after that—after I got out of prison,” he said, watching her out of the corner his eye as he elaborated. She didn’t react, not fazed by the revelation of anyone’s stunts in prison after two years with Shaw. “But after that,” he paused again, “ _ you _ did.” He pulled out into the driveway. “So really, you did this.”

Letty fell silent again. Dom, too, didn’t seem to know what to say. No longer smiling, he was in his own thoughts—still lamenting the girl Letty used to be, perhaps.

They pulled onto the road.

“I’m sorry,” she said. They were cruising slow through the neighborhood, too slow for how concentrated Dom was on the road. The muscles in his jaw twitched, and he raised a brow at her.

“Don’t know what you’re apologizing for.”

A drive through town should be calming, darkness just starting to set in on the night, but it just made Letty anxious. Dom was not the kind of guy to take a nice slow drive with, even  _ he _ thought so, probably. He was clutching the wheel like he was taking fast corners and shifting gears, but they didn’t even shift up to third before he pulled into a parking lot, the headlights illuminating a chain link fence. “Doc said they wanna see if your memory comes back by itself. Might come back in pieces, might help to bring you to familiar places,” he said, nodding toward the park beyond the fence and opening his door.

It was a muggy night, probably more so here than at the house, Letty realized. Around the fence into the park was a boardwalk that wrapped around a lake. Palm trees lined the lakeside, and there were only a few other people silhouetted by the park lamps. Though the sky was still illuminated by the light pollution of LA, the sound of traffic and the other bustle of the city was muted here.

They fell into a casual pace silently, shoulders knocking every so often. She caught his glances, his restrained smiles and bitten back comments. He was waiting, hoping possibly that she would suddenly remember some shared memory or in-joke connected to this lake. Letty didn’t feel a shred of familiarity with this place, though, rather just enjoying the soft smell and lapping of the water.

“We used to come here?” she asked finally.

Dom paused where he stood, heaved a deep sigh and looked out across the water. “Yeah, we all used to come here.”

“All?”

He walked to the rail, leaning his elbows on it heavily. “I really shouldn’t tell you too much, y’know. We’re supposed to let you remember on your own.”

Letty clicked her tongue, annoyed, “So we had friends, big spoiler.”

Dom flashed her that side smile again.

“Someone once said—you start the shit I won’t, and I finish any mess you start.” He rubbed his hand over his knuckles. “We’d all have beef with a guy, for example, and you’d go start a fight with him ‘cause the rest of us didn’t wanna, and I’d come and knock him out for you,” he said. “When you didn’t yourself, ‘course.”

Letty chuckled at that. “Sounds like I set you up a lot,” she said.

“Maybe you did,” he ceded, matching her laugh.

She felt a lapse in conversation coming and intercepted: “So we met at a high school party?”

His smile tightened, running a hand over his nose and mouth, squinting a tiny bit and tilting his head.

“That’s what you said—and you were trying to impress me and you crashed your car.”

“Well, that’s a funny story. We knew each other for years before, I just never…” he grinned wide again, clearly a little embarrassed. “I never tried to make a move before that.” His grin widened further and he chuckled again, sounding more nervous than Letty had heard him yet. Endearing, really. “You came around to our house because Dad’s cars and barbeques and stuff.”

“Neighborhood troublemakers, then?”

Dom threw his head back to laugh at that. “Cops knew our names and addresses before high school.”

He pushed off the rail and they kept walking, only a few inane comments breaking the silence on their way back to the car. As they neared it, Dom said, “I don’t want this to be awkward, but you used to sleep in my room—it’s two smaller beds, so we can push them apart or I can sleep somewhere else if you want.”

Letty raised her brow-- the Toretto team was such a well dressed group to be moving into such an old, unkept house, she thought; there was a story that she was definitely missing out on—and shook her head. “We’ll see.”

They got in the car, Letty not deciding their sleeping arrangement quite yet. Again, a quiet, slow ride back to the house, but this time Letty watched the streets pass outside rather than focusing on Dom. She didn’t recognize a thing.

When they pulled into the driveway again, Dom didn’t move to open the door. He shut the engine off and turned to Letty, once again caught in his own head.

“You apologized to me earlier,” he said, short and simple. “I think I should be the one apologizing.”

Letty frowned. She was the one who was all but a stranger here, and who  _ shot _ him a few day ago, and… the list went on. From her perspective,  _ he  _ was the one who saved her, threw himself off a car going full speed to catch her, brought her into their home when she may as well be a total stranger.

“I screwed up a lot, before. A lot of what you’ve gone through, I could have prevented it. I could’ve… I wasn’t good enough to you, at all. Not just as a—as a  _ partner _ but as a friend.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore—“

“No, let me finish.” He pursed his lips, chewing on the inside of his lower lip. “I know you don’t remember any of that, but it’s important for me to apologize. I’ll tell you more eventually, or you’ll remember, but I just wanted to tell you that I apologize. I want to try again.” He smiled, laughing at himself, “Being friends, I mean.”

Letty stared at him. “Yeah I think,” she started, “that’s best.” She hesitated. “Right?”

He flashed another fond smile at her before growing serious once more. “Now, as far as everything else, remembering everything, don’t worry about it. We’re gonna go at this one day at a time, together. And you can talk to me about anything, alright? ‘Cause we’re friends.”

The yellow light in the garage flickered off, leaving them in the little pool of light seeping out of the house through the garage window.

“Yeah,” she said, near breathless. Her mouth was dry. “Actually, there’s something bothering me,” she said, crossing her arms. “I just don’t know what’s expected. Everybody refers to things I don’t remember at all, and I feel like I’m disappointing you.”

Dominic grimaced and considered how to respond. “I don’t want you to feel like that.” He rubbed his hands over the wheel. “The crew didn’t save you because  _ we _ wanted you around, we wanted  _ you _ to be safe.”

“I don’t see the difference,” she said, rolling her eyes, “but… thanks.”

Dom groaned, “See this is the type of shit I always needed help finishing,” he joked. “What I mean is, you’re family. You don’t owe us anything, we’re all tryna take care of you because you’re family. That goes for me, and Mia and Brian, and Han, too.”

The yellow glow backlit Dom’s face, his features obscured. Letty processed what he was saying—but it still didn’t solve the way his barely concealed sadness made her gut twist. She nodded. He nodded in return, and reached for the car door.

“Wait.” She reached over and grabbed his arm. “That goes for you, too, though. We’re friends, so you tell me when something’s wrong, too.” She bit her lip and hesitated. He lost a friend when she lost her memory. “You don’t always gotta be so tough.”

He looked at her like a deer in the headlights. He was perfectly still for a long moment before he looked down at the wheel, the light profiling him. His brows were furrowed, and his jaw set tight. Blinking, he nodded. He expelled harshly, his shoulders slumping with it before looking at her again.

He ran a hand over his face again, and Letty caught on to how he was holding himself in. She pulled on the arm that she held, pulling him across the low console and into a hug.

\--

They moved the twin beds apart that night. Dom was gone when she woke up.

She stretched, slowly willing herself to get up. Although she had brought a duffle bag of clothes from London, Letty ventured a peek into the closet. Sure enough, with a gap dividing the two sides of the closet where the hangers were pushed apart, there hung shirts and jumpsuits that must have once belonged to Letty. The other side of the closet full of Dom’s clothes.

She grabbed a lacy red tank top, found a pair of gray sweats and headed downstairs.

The only sound in the house was the old stove top, working hard in the kitchen. She peeked in, spotting Brian through the window in the backyard. She leaned over the sink to see him pushing Jack on the swing set with one hand, holding a cigarette with the other.

She opened the back door as quietly as possible, but the jam squeaked and startled him, and he threw the cigarette down fast, with entirely too much force. He grabbed the chain of Jack’s swing, slowing him down before looking at Letty sheepishly.

“Morning,” he said, ticking his chin up. “Mia and Dom are out for a few hours—settling some real estate, or something.” He waved his hand in the air. “Han’s off somewhere, too, just you ‘nd me right now.” 

Jack was kicking his legs out, trying to get going again. He was babbling at Brian, and Brian listened intently, picking the tot up and carefully putting him down on his feet. Jack walked awkwardly, Brian watching like a hawk as he made the journey to the porch steps. Brian squinted up at Letty.

“I made some breakfast burritos if you’re hungry—they’re in the oven. Mia found a box of old photos you can look through after I get this guy down for a nap,” he said with a nod to Jack who had gotten himself to the base of the swing and was patting the wood bar.

“Thanks,” she said, pushing off the rail to return to the kitchen before pausing, “And Brian?” He raised his brows, “Your secret,” she held up two fingers, alluding, “is safe with me. Just don’t do it around the kid, huh?”

He smiled sheepishly again. “You’re right.” He ran his hand through Jack’s hair.

After breakfast, Brian poured them both glasses of juice and plopped the filing box onto the table between them.

“I’ve never seen any of these, either,” Brian admitted, popping the lid off and swiping at the dust that filled the air.

Letty grabbed the first photo packet, an old looking thing with yellowed glue and oil stains. Pinching it width wise, Letty slid out the two dozen or so photos inside and spread them on the counter. They were yellowed, a handful of them black-and-white.

The photos here predominantly depicted one man, a mess of dark semi-coarse hair and a thin, wide smile.

Brian picked up one photo and check the back of it—“Luis Toretto, 1972, Cuba,” he read. “Their Dad.”

Letty nodded; she gathered them into a pile again, scrutinizing the photo on top. It showed Luis with a friend, bent over the hood of a car. She knew that she must have met him in his later days, when she was a child. His broad jaw was the same as Dom’s, but his eyes and nose were Mia’s. He seemed nice.

“Here we go,” Brian said, turning the new stack he pulled out toward Letty. This one was taken in the living room of the house, with five kids sprawled across the floor and couch.

Three kids sat on the couch: on the left was a boy with spiked brown hair and the beginnings of a mustache and a ripped up t-shirt, in the middle was a ten-year old Mia with a frizzy ponytail and wrists full of plastic bracelets, and on the right was a boy with almond skin and pubescent acne, thick dark hair and a neon green tank top. Dom was leaning against the couch next to the kid with the t-shirt, leaning down and whispering something.

Letty couldn’t help the affection she felt for the young, kind of dorky looking boy Dom had been—his hair was short, not shaved, and the t-shirt he wore was much too big. Dom wasn’t very broad yet, with a little baby fat sitting on his cheeks still.  

Brian scooted closer to Letty so they could look together, and he studied the boy Dom was talking to before swearing under his breath. “That’s Vince,” he said, glee poorly masked. “And Mia, of course,” he continued, “and Dom looks maybe sixteen?”

Letty put the photo to the side to come back to. It was a good one.

Letty grabbed another photo from the pile—Dom posed with his arm over the boy Brian didn’t name from the other picture, this time wearing a red tank top instead of yellow. Dom’s hair was longer, a bit less baby fat in his cheeks, but still his shoulders seemed far too narrow. This photo showed off the other boy’s high cheek bones, his heavy-lidded eyes and the way his thick hair naturally swooshed to the side. He had a familiar face—but Letty couldn’t tell if he was just common looking or  _ familiar _ .  

“Do you know who this is?” Letty asked Brian.

Brian took the picture and took a hard look before flipping it over. “I don’t think I’ve met him. There’s nothing written.” He took another good look at the photo. “Does Dom look weird to you?”

Letty looked again. Dom was relaxed in the photo, his shoulders lower and more open than in any of the other photos, or even as far as Letty recalled seeing him. Though, a decade or two could do that to a person, Letty figured. “Younger,” she shrugged. Brian tilted his head, but nodded and put it back in the stack with the others.

“Oh, check this out, there you are,” he said, showing her the next one. It was a photo of the backyard during a high school party, by the looks of it. Letty spotted herself in the bottom corner, sitting at a crowded table, playing cards. Groups stood around, too, and Letty spotted Vince, then Dom and the other boy again.

Letty took a closer look at herself—her hair was long and frizzed, and she was wearing a long sleeve mesh shirt over a neon green tube top.

“Oh  _ god _ ,” Letty said, grimacing at that outfit, holding the photo up to her face to scrutinize it and scrunch her nose up in disgust.

“Hey, that one’s got names on the back,” Brian pointed out. Letty flipped it, and sure enough there were just about twenty names, seeming unorganized, as if written in a stream of consciousness.

“Nate, Mia, Samantha, Sadie, Letty, Ally, Vince, Ben, Xander, Sean…” Letty trailed off. There’d be no telling what the recurring boy’s name was from this list. It didn’t even name Dom.

Letty studied the people at the table she was sitting at in the picture, managed to recognize Mia and only Mia. Brian continued through the pile, setting a few aside for Letty to look at.

“You aren’t in any of these,” she pointed out absently. “So what’s your story?” She knew he had been a cop, but she also knew he was  _ real _ good friends with Dom. There had to be some real history.

Brian laughed nervously. “You’d punch me if I told you how I got in with the team,” he said, quiet like he had planned to say it under his breath.

Letty raised her brows, but could tell how uncomfortable he was. “Fair enough.” She reached back into the box to grab another stack of photos, but her hand hit hard plastic instead. She grabbed hold of it and pulled it out from under the other packets. A VHS, still in the generic white cardboard box it came in from the store. She read the label on its side, ‘ _ Tricks at the park- B. Vasquez’ _ before waving it in front of Brian’s face. “Whaddya think this is?”

He took at it, read the label, and shrugged. “I don’t know who B. Vasquez would be, but maybe I can find a VCR?”

“There’s one hooked up to the TV here still,” she said, pointing at the DVD VCR combo player under the little old television in the living room.

Brian looked, then grinned. “Sweet, let’s pop it in.”

Letty plopped on the couch, Brian checking the back of the TV to see if the chords were all plugged in before turning first the television, and then the player on. He hit rewind and sat beside Letty.

He’d turned the volume low, reminding Letty of the sleeping toddler upstairs.

_ The video started, shaky and silent save for the low sound of skateboard wheels rolling over pavement. The person holding the camera was also clearly on a skateboard, camera facing forward before swiveling first to the left, revealing Dom on his own board, and right to reveal Letty. Both were wearing tank tops and unbuckled helmets. Dom leaned forward and back, a soft zig-zag to his boards movement. _

_ He was relaxed, his eyes all but shut. He looked so small compared to the Dominic Letty knew, with the big yellow t-shirt and cargo shorts, and thick flat shoes accentuating just how small his frame was. _

_ Letty on the other hand still seemed pretty new to skating, her shoulders held tight and her focus firmly on the ground in front of her board. _

“I didn’t know you guys used to skate,” Brian said.

_ “Alright,” the camera person said, close to the mic, “We’re heading to the park to try out some new tricks tonight.” He focused on Letty again, “Or tricks in general, for someone,” he said, zooming in on the back of Letty’s head. Her head snapped up to glare at him, holding her hand close to her face to make sure her middle finger was in the frame. _

_ Dom and the camera person laughed, the camera shaking as the holder took a few strides to build speed. _

_ They bantered, a lot of it incomprehensible because of the camera shaking and background noise, Dom and Letty both somewhat far from the camera for it to pick up their voices. _

_ They got to the skate park, and Dom took a second to make a round, greeting the other teenagers that he knew, giving high fives and finger guns. Letty watched this all with one foot planted on the ground beside a bench. The camera person greeted people that didn’t show in the frame. _

_ A car revved somewhere off camera, and Ben swung to find it in the camera, revealing a suped up gray Civic, which followed its revving with a series of honks. _

_ “Hey, X!” Ben called, finding Dominic on the pipes once more. He got some air, showing off his board, and the painted blue sun star underneath before sliding to the other side of the halfpipe and grabbing his board midair. _

_ “Yeah, I see ‘im,” he said to Ben. _

Letty frowned.

_ The Civic’s passenger door opened, and a tiny, young Mia hopped out. She was holding her own board, helmet, elbow and knee pads secured. _

_ “Dad told you to take me with!” she hollered at Dom as he skated up, mouth contorted into a serious pout. “You left without me!” _

_ The Civic parked as Dominic laughed, “Sorry sis, I thought you changed your mind.” Behind the two of them, Letty rolled up to the car, leaning her elbows on the roof as the driver got out. _

_ “Dad says you’re on thin fucking ice, Xander,” the driver said as he stood. Ben zoomed in on him, camera shaky, revealing… another Dominic. _

_ “Whatever Dom.” _

Letty scrambled for the remote to pause. She stared at the television, not needing to look at Brian to know how he  tensed up-- so he didn’t expect that either. Letty’s mind raced: were they supposed to know this? Where was Xander, then, if family was so important to the Torettos? Was this who the clothes and the skateboard in the backyard belonged to? 

“ _ What _ ?” Brian all but spat out, breaking out of his trance. 

Before Letty could get her wits about her, the front porch creaked and there was a key in the front door, and Mia and Dom were hustling inside.

“Hey, let’s have some beers!” Mia said, sweeping through the living room and into the kitchen, “We got the deed to the market back!”

Brian stood and followed her into the kitchen while Dom laid down the thick folder of documents on one of the stacks of boxes in the living room and sat beside Letty, making himself comfortable. He grabbed the photo of the teenagers on the couch from the ground next to Letty’s foot.

“Find some good ones?”

Letty just stared at him wordlessly, before he finally noticed the image on the television—she had paused it when Xander got to Dom’s Civic, the two of them and Letty all leaning against it.

Dom paled, not reacting when Mia and Brian came back with the beers.

“We were just looking through those photos you pulled down for us,” Brian said, too earnest.

“Oh?” Dom said, walking over to the table still covered in pictures. He picked one up, smiling to himself. “Check this one out, Mia—Ben Vasquez, you remember him?” Brian and Letty locked eyes at the name, Letty shifted minutely to see the photo in Dom’s hand. The long haired kid with the dark features and bright clothes, and in the photo he was standing shoulder to shoulder with the boy Letty had assumed was Dominic.

“Yeah,” Mia said, leaning over to see it as well. She took the photo and smiled, “He looks so young here. He’s still in the neighborhood isn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Dom said. “Their family was pretty dramatic a while back. He might’ve moved downtown with his Mom after the divorce.”

“Damn,” Letty said, holding her hand out to take the photo too. She didn’t know what she was going to say about it, but somehow the shock she’d felt a moment ago was melting into something a little bit like rage. She wanted to believe it wasn’t malicious, the way that Brian had never learned about Xander, the way the discarded clothes in the backyard were almost certainly Xander’s. What happened?

She looked at the photo and asked, “Did I know him?” She took a hard look at the boys in the photo, studying ‘Dom’s face before deciding to take the plunge.

“Yeah, you and Ben were like cousins; your fathers were friends—“

“No, not him,” Letty said, jutting her chin at the photo. “Him,” she said, pointing at not-Dom’s smiling face.

Dom and Mia froze. Brian was looking at Letty hard, but Letty ignored him.

“Wh-“ Mia forced a big smile. “What do you mean?”

Letty just grabbed the remote, pressing play. Video-Dom pointed at the camera for a quick second, shaking his head, before he started talking to Xander again-- though Letty paid no attention to it.

“That’s what we were wondering,” Brian said.

Letty watched Mia’s eyes as realization dawned on her. First her eyes got big, then she opened her mouth and turned to Brian, like she was about to explain it all away before she realized that 

Letty was possessed by something spiteful then as the video began to replay, though she couldn’t focus on it long enough to listen to what was being said. "So, am I missing something?" Letty asked.

"We're missing the same thing,” Brian bit. 

_ “He’s really mad?” Xander asked Dom, tone halfway between concerned and sarcastic. _

_ Dom rolled his eyes, “He said he wanted to talk when you get home.” He slammed the car door shut. _

_ “That’ll just have to wait, ‘cause I didn’t plan on coming home tonight.” _

_ “Xander, you’re really pushing—“ _

_ “What are you gonna do about it?” Xander ask, a laugh masked in his words, “Go cry to Daddy?” _

Mia bit her lip, turning away from Brian and toward Dominic. Brian looked at him, too, and Letty crossed her arms to wait him out. He finally reached out for the beer Mia brought him and cracked it open, taking a sip.

"What do you want, then?" he said, a touch too loud. He was unnerved, but he still set his brow and jaw when Brian shook his head at him. 

"We can start with who that guy is." Brian pressed, voice raising to match Dom's. Ah. Dom wasn’t unnerved by Letty finding out-- really, everything Letty learned about the Torettos was her ‘finding out’ about it. Brian, on the other hand, was part of their family.  _ Actually _ apart of it. Like, so much apart of it that he shouldn’t  _ just _ be finding out about things like this.

"Who do you think?"

Brian blinked, looked between him and Mia incredulously. He was upset-- angry, even. "Your brother." Mia chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"Smart buster, huh?" Dom said derisively. He ran a hand over the back of his head. "Twin brother.” He took another long swig from his bottle. 

The video began playing on the screen again, and Letty muted it quickly. Still, rewatching Xander skateboarding, Letty beside him, while Dom stared at his half full beer bottle gave her a new perspective on it. 

Dom took another long drink. “What do you want to know?” he asked them flatly.

“Well,” Brian started, his sarcastic edge grating against Dom’s ears, “Everything. Why didn’t I ever know ‘bout him?”

“We just,” Mia intervened sharply, placatingly, “don’t talk about him.”

Brian’s expression was even and dark, settling into an interrogation mode he hadn’t touched since his FBI days. “Clearly. Why not?”  

Dom breathed in a deep breath, releasing it through his mouth before looking Brian in the eye. “Xander died about twenty years ago.” 

Brian stared back, another bout of silence falling in the room. The boy on the screen was smiling. 

Letty leaned back in her seat, leaned her head to the side, staring at the wall and piecing it all together.

“Not to—“ Brian hesitated, but his drive to always be cheeky pushed him forward, “Not to be insensitive, but people still talk about deceased relatives.”

Dom let out another stream of air. This topic was getting to him, Letty realized, and throwing him off his usual cool demeanor. “I found out that he…  _ died _ when a family friend called to say they were sorry about it. We hadn’t spoken in years.” 

There it was: Dom’s eyes fell back to his bottle and he picked at the label. He glanced back up to the television in time to see himself as a teenager, berating his brother over the roof of his car. “Could you turn that off?” 

Brian, seeing that this was not going to be a good topic for an argument, crossed his arms and let out a frustrated breath. He relaxed his shoulders, letting them sag lower when Mia put her hand on his knee. 

“But…” Brian said, but Mia interrupted before he could think about saying ‘what about family?’

“I was  _ eleven _ when Dad died and Dom went to jail, and a few months later Xander packed up and left, too,” she said, fast and cold. “Next thing I heard he was dead.”

A pregnant silence. Brian was frowning at his hands.

“Police raid on his apartment. That was about, what, sixteen years ago?” Dom looked at Mia to confirm.

Letty closed her eyes tight, trying as hard as she could to remember a single thing about this. She would remember that, wouldn’t she? 

“You were good friends with him.” She opened her eyes and found Dom looking at her. 

“We were good friends and you weren’t going to tell me about him?”

Dom frowned, nodding his head to the side. “I hadn’t thought about it yet.” 

“And when were you gonna tell  _ me _ ?” Brian interjected.

“Why would I tell you?” Dom asked, first casual, then becoming irate. “It doesn’t concern you, Brian. You weren’t”  _ part of that family _ he was about to say. Letty could hear it on the tip of his tongue, and chances are so could Brian. 

“Aren’t we family?” he said, glancing at Mia and back at Dom, indignant. He scowled at Dom’s nonresponse. “After all the shit we’ve been through, really?” Finally, he found something he could fight over. 

“ _ This  _ family? You and me, man? Giselle, Han, Rome and Tej?  _ This _ family ain’t  _ that _ family. It’s not the same.”

Brian exhaled sharply like he was stung, shoulders rolling and tensing as he leaned forward, angry and incredulous. “Yeah?” He swallowed it down, absorbing what Dom was saying, Mia’s hand on his shoulder trying to calm him. “Good to know. ‘Cause I only got one family, and it’s  _ this one _ , and I really thought I knew my family.” 

Dom leaned his head back against the couch and considered Brian, scrutinizing him where he still sat forward. He was melancholic, more so than Letty recalled seeing him. Brian, under his anger and frustration, looked the same as Dom. 

Mia, looking back and forth between the two, said, “It’s not that we didn’t tell  _ you _ , or purposefully withheld it, it’s just that we don’t  _ ever _ talk about him, really.” 

That didn’t lessen the  _ betrayal _ it seems Brian felt at discovering the third Toretto, though he did return her sympathetic smile. 

Finally, Dom conceded, as if they’d been in a standoff. “Alright. We’ll tell you both, everything.” He wiped a hand down over his face. “I’m just not ready yet.” He worried his lip for a second before looking directly at Letty: “Is that okay?” 

Seeing Dom, more unnerved than ever,  _ asking _ for a grace period before they really opened this can of worms, it softened Letty. Brian was clearly still upset, but as far as Letty was concerned, that could be unpacked later. 

When no one said otherwise, Dom got up and walked out into the backyard, the other three watching him go. 

Brian clenched his teeth once he was gone, rounding on Mia, but once again she cut in first. 

“Don’t start on it,” she said. 

“On what? On how, I always thought I knew you guys, and I’m just finding out otherwise? How I pictured myself as part of the family for real, and--” 

“You  _ are _ , Xander  _ isn’t _ . I barely remember him, really.” 

Letty couldn’t listen any longer. She stood up and quickly went up the stairs, swinging the door to Dom’s room open and shutting it behind her with a resounding click. She sat heavily on the bed she’d slept in, just trying to clear her mind of everything. She made herself to breathe slow, measuring the air she let out and closing her eyes, hands balling in the sheets. 

She remembered him. Xander, sitting on one of the twin beds in the very same room. Black eye, long face, and Letty was sitting at the foot of his bed. Like a ghost, she could remember him moving through the room-- maybe when she was in here with Dom and they were teenagers, maybe when Dom was gone. She remembered him showing off a stick-and-poke tattoo on his chest, his skin still puffy and red. 

Most importantly, she remembered him. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pov switch sorry that's gonna be the norm ladies gentlemen and friends  
> [here's my emo 'the kicker' spotify playlist :3](https://open.spotify.com/user/1255082561/playlist/0ZRgWLkcxc4HC18qfP1DNO?si=dluuN7yjSDuEhX9OBwl7rA)

Dom pulled one of the lawn chairs out from where it was tucked under the table and turned it away from the house, sitting on it heavy and leaning forward on his knees. He took a deep breath, then another.

He _should_ have anticipated this. He should have prepared for the conversation, and had something ready to tell Letty. It was inevitable-- it wasn’t like he was anticipating that she _wouldn’t_ remember everything, eventually.

It wasn’t her fault that it wasn’t as comfortable to talk to her as it used to be-- she wasn’t the same person, and neither was Dom.

But Xander was a whole other deal. It didn’t matter if it was now or then, or if it was Letty or Brian. Dom hadn’t talked about him to anyone other than Mia for at least ten years-- and if it wasn’t Mia, it was Vince and Letty only. He didn’t even remember the last time he and Mia had brought it up.

A few minutes passed before he heard the back door creak open, another lawn chair dragged over next to him, and Brian sat. Dom took a sip of his beer.

“I wanna explain myself,” Brian said. Dom chanced a look at him; Brian was frowning at his hands.

Dom opened his mouth to say something, but Brian cut him off.

“No, I know you got reasons to keep it from me. I was hotheaded, just going with my knee jerk reaction.” Brian fixed his eyes on Dom, his gaze as intense as it ever was. “I never had a family before you guys, not really. Mom worked all the time-- she did her best, but it didn’t really feel like a _family_ , you know? So maybe it was naive of me, but I always had a certain picture in my head about what your family looked like, growing up and all. And I figured that we all shared everything with each other.”

“It wasn’t naive of you,” Dom said.

Brian shrugged. “It just feels like I was wrong about us, even though I’m probably just overreacting and all.” His shoulders sagged an inch, and he fumbled for something in his jacket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

Dom racked his mind trying to remember if he knew Brian smoked as he lit it. Brian saw him fixate on the cigarette and he shrugged, “I try not to.”

Dom let him smoke, his intense gaze falling away from Dom, shifting instead to stare at the back fence. Dom knew about Brian’s feelings on family, had put together exactly why Brian wanted to be a cop, part of a squad-- had put together why he abandoned that so easily when he experienced the Toretto dynamic. Dom had had a lot of time to think about that when they were on the run, when he was trying to make sense of it all. If Dom’s heart hadn’t been so hardened to Brian after his betrayal, it would’ve broken for him.

“You know you’re my brother, right?”

Brian looked at him, blue eyes wide but just as intense. Instantly, Dom could see the wide-eyed little boy Brian had been, waiting all day for him Mom to get home-- till one day he got bored or he got lonely and joined the kids on the streets, robbing and mischief-making and getting sent to juvie. It was the flipside of what made Dom like him so much-- those wild teenage years gave him a kind of reckless ambition Dom appreciated, yet also instilled a deep sense of insecurity, leaving him always looking for proof he belonged.

Brian nodded.

\--

The second morning back in LA, and Dom woke up early to get some elbow grease going in the garage. He felt his way to the foot of his bed, pulled open the closet and patted around for the clothes he had folded and left on one of the shelves the night before.

“Trying to sneak off?”

Letty’s voice was sleep rough, and Dom turned around, barely making out the silhouette of her sitting up in bed.

“I didn’t wanna wake you up,” Dom said, folding the clothes under his arm, planning to change in the bathroom.

“What are you doing up so early then? It’s…” She glanced at her phone, then back at Dom-- and Dom could see her face now in the light from the phone. “It’s four in the morning!”

Dom shrugged, going to pull the door open. “I like an early start in the garage. More market talks this morning.” He stopped in the doorway when he heard Letty scrambling to get up, tossing her blanket aside and nearly tripping on it when she stood.

“Then I’ll come, too. I’ve been itching to get back under a car.” She flipped the light on, and Dom only gave himself a second to look at her-- big t-shirt, orange sleep shorts and messy hair-- before he shrugged and turned back to the hallway.

“Sure.”

－

They kept up small talk-- about the cars, mostly, and a bit about the weather. A little bit about places Dom wanted to show her all over again. There was a burger shop they needed to see (their first date) and a neighborhood just south they should drive through (Letty’s cousins place) and at least a few back lots just to see if they rang a bell for her (drag race favorites).

“And we definitely need to go by the old dance hall-- you and Mia both had quinceaneras at the same place.” Dom laughed. He almost mentioned more, about how she’d asked him for a dance but he had a girlfriend and was denying his crush on her as hard as he could. He was embarrassed to remember how flustered he’d gotten, sixteen years old in his old tux running for the bathroom to avoid Letty after turning her down. Xander was there, he remembered-- laughing at him, and following him to the bathroom to laugh at him more.

Letty’s hand reached out from under the Charger, and Dom handed her the wrench.

“Maybe we should stop by the cemetery,” Letty said, the sound of metal-on-metal grinding falling to the back.

Dom frowned. “You would want to?”

“Me and Xander are in the same one, yeah?” she said, sliding the creeper out from under the car to look at Dom, brow raised. A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, and Dom felt a bit of relief for that. She shrugged. “If we’ve got time.”

No matter how bad Dom wanted to say no to the whole idea, he bit his tongue. Letty sat up, wiping her greasy hands on the front of her coveralls, using the back of her hand to move a wisp of hair that came loose from her ponytail, leaving a streak of grease over her eyebrow.

She leaned against the car door, feet planted on the ground so the creeper didn’t roll out from under her.

“How’s it look under there?” Dom asked, quit and intent and hopefully changing the subject.

“It’s done,” she said, shrugging one shoulder. She leaned her head back against the car, too. “Why do you think I remember him more than I remember you?”

Dom let out an involuntary sigh, leaning back on his heels. “I wish I knew.”

Dom, though he trained his eyes carefully on the garage’s low latticed ceiling, still felt Letty looking at him.

“You have to have _something_ nice you remember about him, right?” Letty said, her voice guarded. “Seemed like you and Mia just hated him yesterday.”

He glared at the ceiling. Of course there were good things, they just weren’t what sprung to mind when he thought about Xander. If there weren’t good things, the bad things wouldn’t stand out so suddenly.

“You can’t _hate_ someone you didn’t love.”

Letty quirked a brow at that, unimpressed frown on her lips. “I… don’t agree.”

She didn’t have to say Shaw, but Dom knew that’s who she was thinking of. He winced.

“Alright, maybe that’s not a hard rule.”

The door opened then, before Dom could try again. Mia peeked her head in. “Are you two hungry? I made breakfast sandwiches.”

“God yes, I’m starving,” Letty said, pushing herself to her feet and taking a plate from Mia, sitting on the ancient threadbare couch.

Dom smiled up at his sister before standing as well, taking his plate and leaning on the arm of the couch. Mia had a third for herself, leaning against the car as she ate.

Between bites, Dom frowned, glancing between Letty and his sister before saying, “How about you, do you have some good memories of Xander?”

Mia froze, sandwich halfway to her mouth.

Letty looked at her, mouth full, as Mia slowly lowered the sandwich back to the plate.

“Of course I do.” She said it softly, hesitant. Mia looked back at Letty, piecing together why she was being asked. “Xander always paid attention, he could always read exactly when someone was upset or had something on their mind.” She looked at Dom thoughtfully. “He figured out when some boys were bullying me in class before anyone else, and we went and egged their house. And he was such a good liar, he swore up and down that Dom did it, and Dad believed Xander didn’t do it but knew Dom was home at the time-- so Dad told the cops it couldn’t have been either of the boys.”

Dom snorted, “So it really was him?”

Mia looked at him, patient but long suffering, “Of _course_ it was him.” She shook her head. “Oh! And he broke his arm skateboarding when they were fourteen or something,” she said.

“Shattered it,” Dom corrected. “Elbow to palm.”

Mia nodded, wincing, “And he still skated all the way home with that. Literally imagine,” she said holding up her hands to form a box with her fingers, peering through them at Dom with one eye, “Fourteen years old, bone out his arm, totally can’t use it, his helmet _still_ unbuckled.”

“Dad had friends over, right? And he came out yelling at Xander for being out longer than he said he’d be, and then…” Dom said with a laugh.

“And Xander just said ‘Sorry, can we go to the hospital?’”

“Dad almost passed out when he saw his arm.”

Mia shivered at the memory. “And he ended up drawing a dick on his cast, right?”

“He did that to get out of having to go to church,” Dom said. “Dad just made him wrap a scarf around it.”

Letty laughed at that. A lull in the conversation, and Letty posed, “So he wasn’t all bad.”

Dom sighed, putting his heel up on the corner of the couch cushion and leaning his elbow on his knee.

“I fought with him all the fucking time, but that’s just what brothers are like. I…” He let out another stream of air. “He left a few months after I went up, and I didn’t know he was really gone till I got out a year and a half later. When I really needed a brother, he wasn’t there.”

Mia put her plate down on the roof of the car.

“I was eleven when he left, and he didn’t even say goodbye. I got home from school and his stuff was gone, and our aunt and uncle wouldn’t tell me what happened.”

“So you have no idea why he left,” Letty said, more a confirmation than question.

Mia bit her lip. “I remember a few days before he left,” she admitted. “He wasn’t going to school-- I didn’t think he dropped out or anything, though. He was on track to graduate early.”

Letty furrowed her brows. “But he did, didn’t he?-- Drop out.” She put her hands over her eyes, trying hard to remember. Again, she could see herself sitting on the foot of his bed, his eye black, just like she’d remembered the night before. “I came by to see why, didn’t I? I mean, just before he left.”

Mia tilted her head. “Yeah, you did,” she said, glancing at Dom. “You remember?”

“He had the shit beaten out of him. I don’t remember anything else.”

“We always wanted to know why he left--” Mia said, ticking her chin at Dom. “I sort of figured we’d all make up somehow, eventually. Till…”

“The only person who we _know_ knows what happened is Ben,” Dom said, crossing his arms. “He wouldn’t even tell us. Guess his ex-girlfriend knew, too, but she was even more difficult to get to talk-- guess she remember how much shit we gave her for always cheating on Xander. They both got super fucked up about his... “ he trailed off for a second, “passing. She dropped out of law school over it, and they say Ben’s anxiety flared like crazy,” he said, gesturing upward with his thumb.

Letty chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Which one did I know better?”

“Ben, for sure.”

She raised her brows at them both, finally picking her sandwich up off her plate again. “Well, why don’t we pay him a visit?”

\--

Mia went to look into where they could find Ben Vasquez while Dom and Letty finished up. The market was going to be opening for its first day back under Dom and Mia’s ownership at 8am, and Dom needed to clean up before that.

As he and Letty put away the last tools, Letty turned to Dom, back against the work table.

“Are you nervous?” she asked. He frowned, confused. “About meeting Ben again.”

He shook his head, a smile spreading. “I don’t get nervous.”

She half-smirked, reaching out and touching Dom’s shoulder, and said, “I don’t believe that for a second.”

\--

Dom didn’t leave the market for home until the sun was low in the sky, walking back up the hill to the house. It had been a full and busy day, greeting old neighbors and assuring them they were back in the neighborhood for good. He met with the family that had been keeping the market open while they were gone-- some friends of his uncle’s-- and hashed out a plan to buy all of the merchandise they’d stocked the shelves with.

He was tired by the time he reached the house. As he walked past the driveway, he glanced in the backyard, stopping in his tracks when he saw Mia and Han there.

The sat with their chairs turned away from the table, chairs leaning against the table’s edge. Mia had her arm over Han’s shoulder, and they spoke softly. It was probably best not to disturb them. He turned to the back door, but the first porch step creaked under his foot.

“Dom?”

He glanced over at them with a guilty frown, Mia’s head swiveled to spy who was sneaking behind them.

“Come here,” she said.

Han watched him pull out a chair with the same dead eyes as the night before, his hair falling into his face.

“I sold my car,” Han said.

Dom held back his knee jerk _What?_ “Why?”

Han shrugged, his eyes flickering to the ground.

“Maybe you two should go find the races tonight,” Mia suggested gently. Han rolled his head toward her, shooting her an unimpressed look and a shake of his head. “I think it would be good for everyone to get back out and see what’s going on,” she pressed, shifting her aim to Dom.

“We could find what Hector’s up to these days,” he said. “Maybe Letty would like to come. I know everybody would be pretty shocked to see Brian behind the wheel now.” Dom shoved Han’s shoulder amiably,  hoping to get him to look up and not down at the ground. “Brian was a pretty shit driver last time we were in LA, y’know.”

Han gave him a small, small smile. Then a sigh, and he said, “I don’t want to be around that.”

Mia frowned at Dom over Han’s head.

“Don’t even want to come watch?”

“No,” he said shortly.

A long silence. Han was angry, but he held it in so well. Or maybe he was thinking, bargaining. It wasn’t too long ago that Dom was in Han’s same place-- but Dom hadn’t _been_ there when Letty “died.” Not that that eliminated all the ways he found himself guilty for it. Same with Dad. If he had convinced his Dad not to race that day, somehow, for some reason, maybe he’d still be around today. If they had managed to make the Charger just a little faster and he wouldn’t have been close enough for the other car to clip him. Or Vince, if he just hadn’t let him come along. Dom didn’t even let himself think about Xander, usually.

“There’s nothing you could’ve done,” Dom said.

Han furrowed his brows almost imperceptibly and shook his head. Mia rubbed his shoulder soothingly.

Dom felt for him, even if his response to Giselle was the opposite of Dom’s: Dom was quiet, but only because he kept his explosive anger under the surface until he snapped-- like with Kenny Linden, or Brian or the fucker who claimed to have killed Letty.

Han was quiet, but not to conceal how he felt. He was numb.

“I’m going to make something to eat, huh?” Mia said, squeezing Han’s shoulders tight and waiting for him to shrug before standing, glancing at Dom worriedly before heading inside.

Dom let the silence stretch for a moment. “Why’d you sell your car?”

Han shrugged again. “Too expensive to bring to Tokyo anyway.”

That had never been a problem for them before, shipping their cars all over the world so as not to leave it behind. Dom didn’t point this out. He wracked his brain for what to say next without touching something too sensitive.

“If we didn’t come help you,” Han said, “She’d still be alive.” He didn’t look at Dom.

Dom exhaled, the weight that he’d been carefully shifting in the back of his head settling heavy in his chest. He couldn’t respond.

Han continued, tone low, even, deadpan. “I’m glad you got Letty back.” He wrung his hands together, not sounding glad at all. “I don’t know if she was worth it to me though.”

It stung, Dom flinching at Letty being talked about like that, but he couldn’t _fault_ Han.

“Giselle was incredible,” Dom managed around the lump in his throat.

“Don’t talk about her.”

Dom may have been wrong about what Han was feeling. His anger was just quieter than Dom’s.

Han sighed deeply. “Sorry.”

“I get it.”

Han ran his hand through his hair. “I just feel like I’m going to wake up and she’ll be here.”

Dom clapped his hand on his shoulder, nodded. There wasn’t anything to say.

\--

The farmer’s market nearest their house was nice and small, half of it designated for produce, half for crafts. Letty had had a light breakfast, and took her time walking through the produce.

“If you want something, go for it,” Dom said under his breath after Letty stopped at the fifth stand.

They found a curb between the produce and the crafts to sit and eat some fruit and the chili-sprinkled corn. As they finished eating, Dom turned to Letty.

“Now,” he started. “I haven’t seen Ben since we were kids, but I’ve heard he’s different now.”

Letty raised a brow, not pausing in her assault on the corn.

“He was kicked out and all that shit, and seeing us is gonna be a shock. Let me bring up Xander, alright?”

Letty shrugged in agreement. She licked the butter off her fingers and wiped her hands on the napkin that came with the food before throwing her weight forward and standing up. She held out a hand to help Dom up off the curb with a cheeky wink.

The crafts were generic for the most part—a few jewelry stands stood out to them, Dom looking at thick rings while Letty surveyed the necklaces.

It wasn’t hard to spot Ben’s tent among the rest. Framed photographs of beach goers and sunsets, blurred images of women dancing in bright dresses lining the outer display area. Letty stepped up to the table, flicking through the boxes of prints. The sporadic car or shaky silhouette against a dusk-illuminated parking lot caught her attention.

“Small prints are ten dollars each, twenty five for medium and forty for the big ones,” a woman said cheerfully with a thick Central American accent, seeing how Letty admired one of the prints. She was short and wide, her thick black hair pulled back into a ponytail. Ben’s Mom, Dom recognized her from his Dad’s barbeques and the many times she had come over to pick Ben up from their house growing up.

“These are nice,” Letty told her, pulling one out to show Dom. It was from the backseat of a sports car, the profile of the driver silhouetted against the blue sky as seen through the warped windshield. The driver was obviously and immediately familiar.

Dom stepped closer, looking at the photo over her shoulder. The woman smiled at them, trying to see which print they were looking at, before she really looked at Dom.

“Ay, hey,” she said suddenly. She searched for the right words, gaping at him and looking back at Letty, suddenly recognizing her too.

“Mrs. Vasquez,” he said with a grin.

“Dominic,” she said, peering at Letty again, “And Leticia, of _course_.” She waved her hands at them, turning and inching away and not taking her eyes off them. “You two stay right there!”

She disappeared behind the tent, still audible as she called for someone else. A moment later she was back, followed by Ben, still that same kid from the photo in a neon pink button down shirt and jeans. His gait was even and smooth, his hair long and just starting to go silver near the roots.

He stopped when he saw them. His eyes grew just a bit larger, covering his shock well. He cleared his throat. “Dominic?”

“One and only,” Dominic said, holding his hand out over the photo display to grip Ben’s. Eyes still wide, Ben pivoted to look at Letty, his surprised grin widening further.

“And Letty, holy shit.” He hurriedly rounded the display table, threw his arms out to invite her in for a hug. Hesitating, Letty hugged him. He gripped longer than she expected, and Letty smiled awkwardly after he released her.

“What have you been up to, Ben?” Dom asked, knocking his shoulder against Letty in reassurance, seeing her slight discomfort.

“Ah, mostly, all this,” he said, throwing his arm out over his display of photographs. “And that,” he said, pointing behind the tent, off somewhere that they couldn’t see. “Mom finally got the restaurant started,” he explained. The tent, then, was set up on the curb in front of it.

“That’s great,” Dom said.

“Yeah, things are finally turning around,” he said, his smile shrinking just a bit before returning full force. “And you! You’re both back-- I heard about that whole bust a few years ago, shit sucks. And I thought I’d heard…” he started, looking at Letty.

“That’s a long story,” Dom intervened. “There was a bit of a medical mishap, and Letty’s actually recovering from amnesia right now.”

“Ohh,” Ben said. “Shit.”

Dom nodded. “Actually, that’s why we came out here today. I was hoping to run into you.”

Ben, friendly as could be, smiled wide and obviously put the pieces together. He looked down at the photo Dom held, recognizing the silhouette of Xander. “I see.” He was paling, his smile tense and thinly masking his nerves. “I’ve got a lot of pictures of him. He told me I could get rights on photos I took of him when we were younger. I mean, when I was starting to put together a portfolio.”

Letty understood why Dom had forewarned her of Ben’s nervousness, as he rubbed his hands together, focusing on the photo in Dom’s hands instead of either of their faces.

“This Dad’s old GTO?” Dom continued on, holding the photo out for Ben to see.

Dom watched Ben measure his response, “It is.”

“Do you have any other photos of that thing? A shame Xander sold it.”

“Yeah, he was pretty upset about it, too,” Ben said, still guarded. Ben knew exactly what they came her to find out-- he always claimed he couldn’t give away Xander’s secrets when Dom or Mia had asked him before. Maybe this time, enough time had passed.

Ben flipped through a box, quickly locating a few other photos of the old classic. It was a light green 1967 Pontiac GTO, and technically it was Xander’s inheritance from their Dad’s will. It was a beauty, though, and Dom always regretted that it had been given to the one Toretto with no real respect for cars.

One of the photos was a shot with the GTO in the foreground, the LA lights in the background; another depicted Xander working under the hood, not even noticing Ben photographing him. Letty took this one, studying what could be seen of Xander’s profile. It was the first one of Xander as an adult she’d seen, Dom figured. He glanced at it over her shoulder-- he shaved his head after running away, got a few tattoos.

Ben watched nervously—Dom could feel his eyes on them as they scrutinized the photo, taking a close look at the sleeve of tattoos on his visible arm.

Ben cleared his throat again. “So… how have you two been? Haven’t seen you since, what? High school?” he asked with an uncertain, uncontrolled laugh, which was cut off just as suddenly as it started.

Dom cocked his head to the side. “Thought it sounded like you’d heard all about us,” he answered simply, but not unkindly.

“Yeah, I guess I have,” he said. “Sorry to hear about Vince, though.”

Dom inhaled deep at his friend’s name, glanced at the ground, before cocking his head again. “How’d you hear about Vince?”

“Oh!” Ben exclaimed, a tad too loud to sound natural, “Just through the grapevine, I guess.” His eyes shifted.

“This is awkward, isn’t it?” Dom said, the tone of his voice giving away Dom’s full knowledge of how uncomfortable they were making Ben.

“No, no!” Ben said. He flapped his hands in front of himself placatingly. “Well, you understand, it’s a little odd—in my opinion—to see you, and you’re asking about Xander and stuff, just out of the blue and everything,” he said, quick as he could.

“You’re right,” Dom said, holding up a hand apologetically, now taking a sympathetic tone. He could play good cop, bad cop if he wanted. Make Ben just uncomfortable enough that he feels he owes something to Dom and Letty. “What’s it been, fifteen years?”

“Sixteen,” Ben corrected without hesitation. Ben squinted at Dom, taking a half step back to really consider him. Maybe Ben was onto his tactics.

“See, we were going through some old photos. You had heard Letty died, but like I said she’s just having memory issues. She found a video of you, her and Xander, and I thought it would be good for her to see you.”

Ben’s eyes grew wide again, and he looked between the two. “Really?” he asked, as if Letty would reveal that Dom was lying. “Do you want to see some more? Would that help?”

Dom could see her wince.

“It could.”

“Really,” he repeated. “I have tons of photos and videos of us, back in my studio,” he said. “The market finishes in an hour, but maybe…” he trailed off, turning and disappearing behind the tent without another word. They could hear him speaking Spanish, and he reappeared a moment later with his mother. “My studio’s just a few blocks, and Mom’s says she’ll bring us some food if we’re still there when they pack up.”

“How much is this print?” Dom asked before Ben could usher them on their way, holding up the image of the GTO overlooking the city.

“Just take it,” Ben said with a shrug. “A little compensation for the thing being sold.”

Dom shrugged, sticking it under his arm as they followed Ben to the sidewalk and around the corner.

Ben was uncomfortable, keeping his eyes on the ground and hands in his pockets as they walked to his studio. The guy really had been through a lot, and it almost made Dom feel bad for pressing so hard for info on his dead best friend. But it was Dom’s dead _brother_ , so maybe that evened it all out.

“Here,” he announced, stopping at a gated section between two brick buildings. He clumsily pulled out his keyring, finding the right one and noisily unlocking the iron gate, swinging it open to reveal a staircase up.

They followed him up into the studio, which he unlocked to reveal a reception area, put together with a desk and series of curtains. They followed him past this, to the back, past camera set ups and backdrop screens, to another sitting area with a nice sectional couch and coffee table covered with coffee table books.

“This is quite the place,” Dom commented low, surveying the room again.

“Yeah—I do like, wedding photos and baby shoots and stuff.” He motioned for Dom and Letty to sit on the couch as he pulled down a ladder into the attic. “Just one second,” he said, “I have a few albums.” He began climbing, paused halfway up. “Any requests?”

“Skateboarding,” Letty said with no hesitation.

Ben grinned and disappeared into the attic.

He reappeared a second later, a stack of albums in his arms and a portable DVD player balanced on top.

“Take a look at these,” he said, plopping the albums down on the coffee table in front of them and taking the portable DVD player off the top. He sat at a chair he pulled over, messing around to turn it on.

Letty grabbed the first album, flipping it open and resting half of it on Dom’s leg. The photos were individually placed into the album’s plastic lining, and each had their own caption written in nice handwriting and gel pen.

The photos in this album were brightly colored, with lens flares and glare, but clearly showing Ben and Xander, in their early twenties and presumably their best club wear. The bright yellow and blue and green lights, the darkened dance floor in the background and precisely what Ben was wearing gave away that they were in club. While Xander wore rather plain clothes—a black high collared, sleeveless and form-fitting tank top and jeans—Ben seemed to continue his youthful tendency toward neon, with a tight green shirt, partially transparent around the waist, and similarly tight pink shorts.

“Hey, check this out,” Ben interrupted, setting the DVD player in front of them on the table. “Xander and I used to do a vlog,” he explained to Letty. He waved his hand in the air—“I don’t really like being in _front_ of the camera, unlike Xander, so it was kind of a proto ‘Xander Zone’ series.” He laughed, bubbling up in a burst. “He was always so corny. Don’t know anyone else who could say ‘Xander Zone’ with a straight face.”

He pressed play on the video he had loaded on the player. It showed the back of Xander’s head, tattoos visible on the back of his neck and shoulders, even down to his wrists and hands. _He sat with his legs off the back of a truck, skateboard on his lap._

_“What are you up to today, Xander?” video-Ben asked from off screen, camera zooming in on Xander to perfectly frame him as he glanced over his shoulder and smiled at the camera._

_“Yo, what I’m about to do is skate down to the beach, no stops, and see how it turns out.” The camera panned to reveal the beach view, far below the side road they were parked on. It looked like a pretty steep drive down to the beach park with some congested roads leading into the beachside town. “Hope you guys can keep up,” he said as he jumped off the back. Ben followed him off the truck bed._

_Xander tossed the skateboard down, a passing glance over his shoulder and a peace sign, he said. “Welcome to the ‘Xander Zone.’” And off he rolled, Ben jumping into the passenger seat of the truck, which peeled off in pursuit of Xander._

_Xander zipped through the streets, body loose as he bent down, twisting to narrowly avoid oncoming traffic, veering around cars stopped at a stop sign._

_“Shit,” the driver muttered, stuck behind three cars patiently waiting._

_“Take a right; shortcut,” Ben said. The driver obeyed, whipping around the corner. A few blocks on they hung a left, the camera panning the intersecting roads until zipped past, the truck quickly tailing him. Still a block or so beyond the truck, Xander glanced back, grinning. He was probably going a solid thirty to forty miles per hour, entirely without pads or helmets. Ben held his hand in front of the camera to flip Xander off, even as he laughed._

_The road curved to the right, slope becoming steeper and road narrower. Xander veered in and out of oncoming traffic, avoiding side mirrors by inches._

_“Getting close,” the driver said. The road was evening out, more stop signs and more honking blurring into the background as they flew past._

_Finally, a road with beach parking and lined with kids with surfers and wetsuits appeared, and Xander tore onto it, weaving side to side before taking a sharp toward into the beach park, where he hopped over a barrier and onto the seaside walkway._

_He jumped again, grinding a rail and avoiding collision with a young family. The camera was zoomed in and shaky—difficult to follow him in the parking lot._

_“Crazy son of a bitch,” the driver laughed._

_“Yeah, let me out here,” Ben said, popping open the door and following Xander on foot._

_Xander was making lazy circles in the wide part of the walkway, waiting. He grinned at Ben’s approach._

_“Really tried to lose us, you asshole,” Ben laughed._

_“The chase scene element is always more exciting,” Xander said with a wink before the footage cut._

Ben now, voice more cracked and worn than in the video, still grinned as he removed the CD from the player.

“I have hours of his stunts,” he said fondly.

“He had always joked about getting a bunch of tattoos—I least, _I_ thought he was joking,” Dom said. “I bet there’s stories behind all those, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Ben said. “Most of the stories are about him sleeping with tattoos artists, though.”

Letty laughed at that, while Dom scoffed incredulously.

“Not really, not really. Least that’s not the ‘story’ of ‘em, only how he got them done. My favorite was the Ferdinand the Bull. It was cool because it moved when he flexed his arm.”

“Exactly how Xander liked it-- something he could make a show out of.”

Ben barked a laughed. “Always, _always_ a showman.”

The two fell silent, each in their own thoughts. Dom pulled another album off the pile and into his lap, flipping through it absently. Ben watched him, as if he had a comment on the tip of his tongue.

The second album was all of their friends during high school-- Ben and Xander, some with Dom, Letty, Vince, and even a few with Xander’s old high school girlfriend.

Dom pointed her out to Letty, “That’s Charlie. They dated all of high school.”

Ben made a sound just like a beep: “They broke up the summer before Junior year,” he corrected.

Dom tilted his head. “How did I not know that?”

Ben shrugged. “I keep up with her, actually. She got married ten years ago, met her spouse in law school before she dropped out. Actually-- they met at one of the memorials someone put on for Xander, ‘cause their little brother was in our class. Wild, right? Her partner’s a lawyer and she’s a local policy maker, I guess. They’re between here and Sacramento these days.” He took the album from Dom’s lap and pushed another stack of photos into his hand.

One photo stood out, over halfway through the album—Letty stood center, wearing a frilly yellow dress. Both Dom and Xander were in the picture, among a half dozen others around their age, all dressed clean and neat. Dom internally cringed at himself-- he wasn't a bad looking kid, really, but looking back it was so obvious how big of a crush he had on Letty, the good six inches he left between himself and Letty, the nervous stiffness evident even in the picture.

“Quinceanera,” Ben said.

“Your Mom had to cry and beg you to get in that dress,” Dom said, laughing off his other thoughts. “Changed out of it as soon as we got in the car.” Letty repressed a laugh at that.

“ _My_ Mom cried when you wore that dress,” Ben said. He bit his lip and peered at her. “Really quick, can I ask? I just wanna clarify that this is what you guys came for, right? Just photos of him?”

Dom looked up slowly, raising a brow at Ben. “What, uh…” he licked his lips. “What else would be here for?” he asked, meant to be humorous but losing it on Ben, who looked down nervously and taken aback by this. He shrugged.

A knock on the door signaled Ben’s mother’s arrival, and she peeked inside, opposite hand full of a paper bag. Her smile was big and warm as she came across the studio, putting the bag down and patting it.

“Hi Mama, thank you! How was the market?” Ben greeted her, scooting around to let her sit as he ripped open the bag and handed two of the wrapped empanadas over to Dom and Letty.

“Xander?” she asked as he handed her one as well, nodding to the coffee table. “It is a shame you two have never made up,” she said to Dom, tone light for such a somber observation.

Dom forced a half smile and a weak nod, eyes down. Of course she knew just how Dom and Xander had split ways, no doubt by word of mouth from Xander to Ben to his mother. It stung, but Dom realized through that that this was the means to his end here: act like that hurt bad, ask Ben to finally explain what even _happened_ with Xander.

“Mom…” Ben said, clearly uncomfortable.

“Hey,” she continued, not minding Ben or Dom or anyone. “He said he would come visit, no?”

Ben stared at her. His mouth fell agape a bit before he glanced at Dom and Letty. “ _Mom_ ,” he whispered loudly.

“What?” she asked sweetly.

“Well,” Ben started. “Like you said,” he said, waving in Dom’s direction.

“Oh!” she covered her mouth theatrically. “I’m sorry!”

“No, it’s fine,” Dom assured her, forced smile still in place.

“Well, the restaurant is about to be slammed. Dom, you need to come by sometime, bring your sister! I _heard_ someone saw her in the yard with a little one,” she said, halfway singsong as she got to her feet.

“Yeah, we’ll bring them all by,” Dom said, only half present as she retreated to the door.

“Bye Mom!” Ben called, sounding a touch exasperated. He ran a hand down his face as soon as she closed the door. He turned to Dom, opened his mouth to explain.

“Does she have Alzheimer’s or something?” Dom asked, cutting him off. Letty smacked his arm—let the man explain, she thought.

Ben, caught by the supposition, hesitated. “No,” Ben said. He sighed.

“She’s got a twisted sense of humor, then.”

“No, that’s not it, I promise. God, I’m sorry,” Ben said, though he was more upset than what was proportionate. “I should’ve said something earlier.”

This was his opening, and Dom opened his mouth-- _So why did he run away_ , he was going to ask, but Ben cut him off.

“Xander’s not dead.”

Dom didn’t react. He sat perfectly still for a long moment. His head whirred-- Ben did _not_ just say that; maybe Dom had made him too anxious. He adjusted his posture, cocked his head at Ben, and smiled the coldest smile.

“I think we have to go now.”

“Wait, no, I’m not lying!” Ben held up his hand to slow their leave as both of them stood. “I wouldn’t make this up.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Dom said, inching toward the door with his hand held out to Letty. “Just forgot Mia needs a ride to the store. It was good seeing you, don’t be a stranger.”

“God, Dom, hear me out, okay?” he looked panicked as he followed them across the room. “He just showed up here a year ago, asking about you guys and all. I had no idea—he never died,” he explained in a scramble, trying to get Dom to look at him.

“I am sorry to cut this short, Ben, but we really do have to go,” Dom pulled the door open, ready to leave, before pausing and looking back at Ben. “We’re having a barbecue this Saturday, come if you’d like. Bring your Mom and everyone, okay?” He turned before Ben could answer, and Letty followed him back onto the street.

\--

Dom didn’t speak as they drove home, and didn’t speak when they parked. Why would Ben say some shit like that? Xander’s passing must’ve fucked him up _bad_.

He pulled into the garage and went into the house without a word, not returning Mia’s greeting and not giving thought to Brian’s confused expression as he pulled the fridge open and grabbed a beer. Mia shot a questioning look at Letty when she followed a moment later, and Letty shrugged and put the strawberries on the counter.

“So how’d it go?” Mia asked, glancing between the two of them.

“It was fine. We found him, got a photo of the old car, he showed us the photos he’s still got,” Dom said shortly. He took a long swig on the beer. “What’s Han up to?”

Mia gave him a look, like he was toeing dangerous territory. “He bought a new car, and he’s tinkering on it in the back,” Mia said. “He said something about getting it shipped overseas, so he wanted to reinforce the frame.”

“Smart,” Letty said. “Shaw used to—“ she cut herself off. Awkward.

“I’m gonna see if he needs a hand,” Brian said, grabbing a rag from the sink.

“Good idea, honey,” Mia said. Dom saw the look they shared, communicating something silently, before Mia nodded and Brian went out the back door.

Mia grabbed two more beers, for herself and Letty, and nodded to the living room. “Something happened,” she said, sitting on the couch as Dom pulled over one of the dining table chairs.

“I invited him to a barbecue Saturday.”

“We’re having one?” Mia asked.

“We are now. I’ll let people know.”

Mia nodded, turning to Letty to hear her take away.

“He said something interesting,” Letty said. Dom winced.

“He’s not in his right mind, but we knew that.” Dom winced again, at his tone. No way Mia didn’t pick up on it.

“So,” Mia said, “He still wouldn’t tell about Xander?”

Letty looked at Dom, Dom shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t.”

\--

The barbecue drew a larger crowd than Dom expected-- neighbors he hadn’t seen in a few years, people he went to high school with and racers from Dom’s old scene. There were a handful of neighbors that Dom hadn’t met before, probably someone Mia met on the street and invited on a whim.

Dom was on introduce-Letty-to-everyone-(without overwhelming her)-duty.

Ben and his mother came, shortly before food was served so there weren’t any spaces open at Dom’s table. Dom eyed him throughout the barbecue, somewhat uneasy about approaching him again, wanting to be able to forgive and forget whatever episode he’d had the other day, and just ask again why Xander had left all those years ago.

He didn’t get a chance to get close to him until the crowd was dissipating, catching him near the punch as his Mom packed up to leave.

“Hey, Ben,” he said, grabbing himself a plastic cup to fill up with punch after Ben. “So the other day, I don’t know what happened. Sorry I left so fast. We just wanted to ask about when Xander left, really.”

Ben nearly spilled his drink when Dom came up right next to him, but quickly composed himself. “It’s no problem,” he said. “Xander can tell you that, though.”

Dom stared at him. “No really, that’s all I wanted to know.”

Ben shrugged. “I told you, man.”

A doorbell rang in the distance, and Dom vaguely registered that it was theirs. He glanced at the rest of the barbecue, trying to keep his cool. Ben was testing his patience, though.

Hector, Suki and Edwin all stuck near a corner by the garage, chatting between themselves. Brian approached them at some point, and Hector slung a friendly arm over his shoulder.

The bell rang again.

Dom exhaled shortly, set down his punch down with a wet _clank_ and squinted at the door.

“Rome, go check it out,” Brian said, nodding.

“Oh _Rome why don’t you go do this, why don’t you do that,”_ he said, mocking as he threw down a plate to claim his spot.

Roman disappeared into the porch door in a huff.

“We’ve gotta get going though,” Ben said while Dom was distracted watching this unfold. He linked arms with his mother and set off around the corner before Dom could protest. He grit his teeth— so Ben continued to masterfully dodge their questions.

“Doesn’t everyone know to come around?” Dom muttered under his breath to Mia, handing her the punch he’d dished himself up and taking a seat beside her.

“’Less we’re getting noise complaints already,” Mia retorted, punctuating with a laugh.

Before Dom could get his own smart remark in, Rome reappeared on the back porch. But he was alone, and his brows were screwed together, scrutinizing. He disappeared again before anyone could question him.

“Somebody playing ding-dong-ditch?” Brian grinned.

Rome peaked back out the door, looking just as confused, like one of them had grown a second head.

“Rome, stop messing around man!”

“Y’all, I swear if _you’re_ messing with _me_ , this is fucked up. Dom, why’s there a dude out here who looks just like you?”

“Keep your voice down,” Dom barked, beckoning Roman over. Most of their guests were starting to clear out, but still. Rome leaned over Dom’s chair to talk quietly for once. “What do you mean?”

“Man he looked like your twin or some shit, like same face and voice and shit, just a bunch of tats.”

Dom grew eerily still, tense as he swallowed. His eyes slid to look at Mia, then Letty.

“Let me go get him if you don’t believe me, shit!” Rome said, pushing off of Dom’s chair to go.

“Whoa, whoa, I believe you,” Dom said, smiling and trying to grab Rome’s wrist.

“Man, I said stop fucking around,” Brian said, rolling his eyes at his friend, sending a questioning look at Dom behind Rome’s back.

“Yeah,” somebody said, projecting loud enough to be heard at the table without raising his voice, “Stop fucking around.” Rome yelped and jumped to face the doorway like he’d been burned.

Leaning there, natural as if he’d always been there, was Xander Cage. Xander wore gray capris sweats and a black tank top, showing off his sleeves of tattoos. He seemed unperturbed by the shocked silence as he set down a six pack of what looked like seltzer water.

Dom couldn't even react. He stared at Xander where he stood in the doorjamb, not a care for the guests or the friends gathered in the backyard. At that point there were only a few neighbors and close friends left— and the neighbors caught on that it may be time to get going.

Mia stared as well— none of the team moved an inch, and Xander stayed right where he stood.

The porch door swung shut, the only sound in the backyard aside from Xander casually cracking his neck.

Finally, the silence was broken: “ _See_ ,” Roman hissed.

“Yeah, _Rome_ , we all fucking see,” Brian hissed back.

Xander swaggered down the porch steps, taking his time. As he walked over, Dom’s mind raced. He wasn’t prepared for Ben to be telling the truth— he was imagining this, or it was an imposter, or his eyes were tricking him. Maybe it was a prank. He could see the others looking to him for an explanation, some kind of centering.

But this was Xander, and intellectually Dom knew this. He couldn’t quite grapple with how, why, or what exactly was going on. He couldn’t deal with those questions yet. But this was Xander.

Xander came to a smooth stop just short of the table, smugly surveying the lay of the land, eyeing each person: Rome, Tej, Han, Letty— who got a smile and nod— Brian and Jack, and finally Mia and Dom, all of whom stared right back.

Xander raised his brow, scanning back to the unfamiliar faces of Dom’s friends, such a Xander-tactic that it was a shock to Dom’s system.

Raising his hand up and toward Dom and Mia, he spoke to the other end of the table like they were in on the joke.

“I’ll admit it,” he said, raising his hand up and toward Dom and Mia, he spoke to the other end of the table like they were in on the joke. “Not the reaction I planned for.”


	3. Chapter 3

Mia could not compute this. It didn’t register. She rejected it. 

She’d been to the funeral, and held the death certificate in her hand. It had been closed casket, cause of death multiple gunshot wounds and a cocktail of internal bleeding. The police report said he died at the scene. 

So her head-- logically checking each of item off the long list of how this wasn’t happening-- knew this wasn’t real. 

The man reached out his hand toward Tej, who sat on the other end of the table from Mia and Dom. 

“Xander Cage,” he introduced himself. Tej looked at the hand, then up at the man, then down the table at the Torettos, and back up at him. He took the hand, cautious. 

“Tej Parker.” 

“Good to meet you,” he said, moving on to Roman, who was openly dumbfounded. 

“Roman Pearce,” he introduced himself, shaking hands even as his eyes slid to Dom distractedly. “Can I ask real quick? What the fuck is going on.” 

Mia could see how Brian was clutching Jack out of the corner of her eye. She was thinking the same as Roman. 

“Well, at least I don’t have to feel guilty about this all,” the man said. “I ain’t ever told my friends about you guys either,” he said, and finally looked straight at Dom and Mia. “They all think I grew up a foster kid or some shit.” He laughed. Whoever this was, their laugh sounded like Xander: loud and careless, yet carefully contained. 

Mia’s mind raced, reconciling. There was no way this was Xander: why would there have been so much proof of his death, just for him to… not be dead? What would have he been doing for sixteen years, and not once bother to reach out to them? 

Mia stood without a thought of what she was doing. She stood, drawing all eyes-- Brian and Dom looked up at her, Rome and Tej watched expectantly. ‘Xander’ locked eyes, grinning widely as if he  _ recognized _ her, as if he knew her. 

“Mia,” he said. 

She marched around the table, planted her feet in front of him, curled her hand into a fist and swung as hard as she could. 

Knuckles met jaw, head snapped back, and she grabbed her hand with the other one, shaking it out. 

Xander gripped his jaw, mouth open and stretching it out. He looked at her with mild surprise. 

“Y’know, I expected that from  _ him _ ,” he said, ticking his chin at Dom and wincing with it. 

Mia followed his movement, saw the shock on Dom’s face, too, mirroring ‘Xander’s.’ In that moment, it clicked. 

“You’re alive,” she said-- a cocktail of shock, dismay, anger, a touch of closely guarded joy in her voice. She tamped down on that. “You’ve been  _ alive this entire time _ .” 

Xander winced, like he’d been expecting to hear that hint of betrayal in her voice. “Yeah…” 

Mia turned on her heel, pointing at Dom: “And you don’t have  _ anything _ to say.” Dom opened her mouth but she was already turning back to point in Xander’s face. “What the  _ hell  _ do you have to say?”

Xander put his hands up defensively. “I can explain.” He said it with a smug smirk, an eyebrow raised like Mia was being  _ ridiculous _ . And that pissed her off. She curled her fist into a ball again, in his face, and he watched her strike him in the chest, bracing for it. It was like being stung, to strike him with almost no response. It was so Xander. Mia felt herself choke up, fist resting on his chest. 

“Yeah I think I’m gonna need that explanation,” Roman called out, not to let anyone forget that he and Tej were still there, entirely in the dark. 

Dom, finally, spoke up. 

“Mia,” he said, his voice so audibly constrained. He was holding himself back, and Mia grit her teeth at that. “Sit down.” 

She could only hear her breathing as she took her seat again, tunnel vision on herself and on Xander. Who stood there, rubbing his jaw. 

Dom said, “Ben…” 

“Yeah, you thought he was fucking crazy, huh?” Xander said, laughing loudly again. 

“Uh, hello? Y’all just leaving Roman in the dark, now?” 

“Man, figure it the fuck out,” Brian snapped at him. Mia felt like she was not in her own body as she put hands over Jack’s ears. Like that could undo everything Jack had already absorbed from their friends and from Brian and from just witnessing his mother cold cock a man identical to his Uncle Dom. 

Mia blinked at the heavy silence that followed Brian’s outburst. She blinked a handful more, and looked to Dom for what was next. Just on Dom’s other side, Letty sat, eyes wide, face blank and pale, and stared unwaveringly at Xander. 

“Well?” Xander said. He was looking at Dom, waiting for  _ his _ outburst no doubt, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Dom to try and tackle him, try and wail on him the way he had when Xander swung at the hornet’s nest that was Dom. He hadn’t realized what kind of hornet Mia had grown up to be, Mia realized and felt something akin to smugness. 

Still, Mia’s breathing was loud in her own ears, experiencing her turmoil of emotions through the way she held her breath, or let it out all at once when Dom said: “Well what?” 

Dom said: “You’re the one who’s been pretending to be dead.” It was on Xander’s shoulders. “Tell me what’s ‘well’ about that?” Made no sense, but Xander got the point. 

“No, no, no, no, no,” Tej interrupted now. “Hold up. What the fuck.” 

Xander took the switch, grinning. “I’m just Dom’s dead twin brother.” He gave a wink, and Mia’s breathing sped up once more, angry. 

“No,” she said. “No he’s the one who fucked off when Dom was in prison. When I was eleven.” There was more on the tip of her tongue. She bit down on it. 

Xander let that roll off his back with a shrug. “God now  _ that’s _ a relief. When I wasn’t immediately criticized walking through the door I thought, ‘Damn, do I have the right house?’”

Mia saw Dom’s jaw twitch. 

“I don’t know what that means,” Dom said, the evenness starting to wear off. 

Xander shrugged again. “Take it as you will.” He cracked his neck, grabbed one of the chairs and flipped it around, sitting on it backwards. It left him facing Brian directly. “Didn’t catch your name yet.” 

“Brian.” 

“Just Brian?” 

“O’Connor.” 

Xander stared Brian down, his smugness at odds with Brian’s trained stoicism, and Mia was about to intervene when Xander’s eyes flickered down to Jack, to Mia’s hands on his head still, then to Mia and back to Brian. Xander nodded. He said nothing more. 

“Well, Ben called me after you visited him,” he said, resuming his conversation with Dom. “He said he’d told you what he shouldn’t have, and that you thought he was lying, and how Letty’s gotten a bout of amnesia. And she,” he said, cocking his head to the side and smiling at Letty, “remembered me.” 

The look to Letty, away from Dom, was tactical. Mia had seen it a thousand times, a way to irritate Dom. 

There could be no more doubt that this was Xander, the same kid who would push Dom till he pushed back and then tattled, the same kid who could easily get off the hook with cops with his uncanny smooth talking, and the same kid who moved two neighborhoods over and never spoke to them again. 

“So that’s why...” 

“Why I’m here? Y’know, I stopped over here a year ago and the place was boarded up and shit.” He showcased the way he looked around the backyard. “You cleaned it up nice.” He cracked his knuckles loudly. “How long you guys been fugitives again?” He counted on his fingers, though he clearly already knew the answer. Mia grit her teeth hard. “Seven or so years?” He leaned off the chair enough to scoot it toward the table, grabbing a piece of chicken he could reach and taking a bite. “I read about the bust and all, y’know-- about the car jackings or whatever bullshit you were getting up to. Someone sent me news clippings. Crazy.” He shot a short, knowing glance at Brian that made Mia tense. “Didn’t hear about any of the other shit till, uh…” he trailed off for a second, waving the chicken in the air as he pretended to search for words. “Rest in peace, but kinda fucked up how Vince went out, huh?” 

“Don’t,” Dom warned him. 

Xander pretended to be surprised by Dom’s dangerously low tone, pausing and raising a brow. “Oh, touchy?” 

“Why did you come around  _ just _ a year ago? You’ve been gone a long time.” 

“Twenty three years,” Mia corrected. 

Xander waved his empty hand at them. “It’s such a long story. I’m sure nobody else is interested, we can wait till it’s just family.” 

“This is our family.” 

Xander squinted, looking between Tej and Roman and his brother. He raised his brows. “I thought the west coast poly jokes were just jokes.” 

Dom didn’t laugh. “These are all my brothers.” 

Xander grinned and laughed softly, but Mia could see the little break in his smug facade, the little lines around Xander’s eyes defining what those words meant to him. “Huh.” 

“Hold on can I just--” Roman jumped in again. “You died? What the fuck?” 

For as much of a performer Roman himself was, he was fueling Xander’s exhibitionist side with these questions. The puncture hole sealed up again. Xander grinned. 

“We never got that explanation, either,” Dom said, crossing his arms. 

“Oh it is  _ such a long story _ .” He rubbed his hands together where he rested his wrists on the back of the chair he sat on. “Really, I was just driving down to Mexico when I got Ben’s call, and I wanted to swing by to see if I could help. But,” he said, standing, “Maybe I’ve caused some upset showing up like this. I’m gonna walk down to the market-- it’s open still, right?-- and see if I can’t find a room for a few days.” He pushed off the chair back and began to turn. A whirl of emotions hit Mia, brought on both by his words and seeing him turn away-- panic, that he was going to up and leave again, relief at that same idea, that she could forget this all and go back to not ever thinking about Xander. She couldn’t deny the ache she felt, the urge to follow him, grab his shoulder and pull him back to the table. Luckily, Dom spoke for her. 

“Whoa, whoa,” Dom said, moving to stand until Xander stopped and looked back over his shoulder. Mia knew what he was going to say, wincing already: “We’ve got space here.” 

Xander frowned, unsatisfied. 

“Come on, there’s Dad’s room, and Grandma’s.” 

Mia balked at the suggestion that he’d stay in  _ either _ of those rooms. They hadn’t been touched since those respective family members had passed. For Xander to be the first to stay in either-- that just wasn’t  _ right _ . Xander hadn’t even been around when Grandma passed away; by the look on Xander’s face right now, he hadn’t even thought about her until that moment, realizing that she had inevitably passed sometime in his absence. 

But Xander hummed. He shrugged, said, “I’ll think about it,” and continued on. 

The table sat in silence for a hot second. Dom picked up his beer with studiously still hands. Letty, who Mia had all but forgotten about, stood suddenly, the back legs of her chair catching the ground and knocking back. 

“I’m gonna…” she said, pointing at where Xander had just disappeared around the corner before jogging after him. 

Everyone in the backyard, Mia included, had their eyes on Dom. 

“Did you have any idea?” Mia asked him, shoving her finger through the air again. It might not be right to be angry with Dom, but she was now. She couldn’t help it; she’s got the anger in her system and it’s got to be directed somewhere. 

“Ben said he was,” Dom said carefully. “I thought he was fucking with me.” 

She bit back the  _ why didn’t you say anything _ that she wanted to spit. 

Her head hurt. Her eyes hurt. She couldn’t stop flipping through new and worse questions: not only _why did he leave?_ but _why did he stay gone?_ _Why did he ‘die’? Why did he stay dead, if he wasn’t really?_ There were darker questions that she had held down for years-- if she wasn’t enough to keep him home, or if it was something that she had done to make him leave in the first place. 

Dom set the bottle down. He addressed Tej and Roman. “We never found out why he left in the first place. They said he died in a police raid.” Dom looked shaken. The anomaly of Dom  _ showing _ any amount of uncertainty wasn’t lost on Mia.

A fleeting thought crossed Mia’s mind, and she wondered briefly how much her own fears were shared with her brother, how much Dom also wondered how he could blame himself for Xander’s disappearance. Dom was quick to anger, slow to forgive himself for these things; Mia was the converse, finding the ways she could be guilty for things outside her control, and angry forever after. 

Because Xander had  _ left them _ , then had gotten himself killed-- or so that’s how she thought about it until five minutes ago. Now… he had left them, and let them bury him, only to show back up without so much as a “sorry.” 

“Are you okay?” 

Dom was looking at her. She had not realized how she put her hands back on her lap, making fists so tight her knuckles turned white and her nails dug into the palm of her hand. 

She look back at him. What kind of question was that? “You want him to stay here,” she said, her voice hedged with some guttural emotion she barely recognized. “We don’t even know him.” 

“Mia…” 

“I was a child the last time-- he left when I was at school in  _ fifth grade _ . Who the fuck knows who he is now? He could be…” 

“Yeah, who fakes their death like that?” Brian interjected, resituating Jack in his lap. 

“Could be prison tattoos,” Mia said. She could feel Roman frowning at her, but ignored him. 

“Those weren’t…” Rome started, but Tej talked over him. 

“I mean, he came back for our girl,” Tej said, nodding to Letty’s empty seat where it laid on the ground. “Does that count for anything? And as far as character… I mean…” he said, tilting his head toward the table at large. “We ain’t model citizens, sis.” 

“You don’t know anything about him,” Mia snapped. Tej put his hands up, washing his hands of it all. 

Dom sighed. He looked at Mia, straight in the eye, and he looked tired. Bone tired. “If it helps Letty…” he said, just implying his acceptance. 

“Maybe we oughta stay in town, stay close, just in case,” Rome said. He leaned forward, hands folded and nodding toward Tej before tipping his head toward Brian and Mia. Regularly, Mia would be touched by the gesture, but it all just settled on her, laying heavy on her head and settling right behind her eyes. 

Mia tapped her fingers on the table. Being angry wasn’t constructive, but she couldn’t calm herself. She had too much going through her head. Standing suddenly, she scooted her chair out of the way and quickly walked to the porch, up the stairs, and in the back door. She dunked into the kitchen, swung open the fridge and grabbed a beer, and made her way immediately upstairs to her bedroom. 

She sat on her bed and twisted the cap off the bottle. She held it between her hands as it sweated cool water into her palms. Sighing shakily, she pressed it to her forehead, too. 

Several minutes passed like this before she heard the stairs creak, footsteps slow and even. Judging by the gait and the weight and the careful placement of each step, it was unmistakably Brian. He knocked on the door, waiting for a positive sound from Mia before pushing the door open and peaking inside. 

“Hey,” he said. 

“Hey,” she said, gesturing a wave to him with the beer bottle. 

He stepped in the door, closing it gently, and sitting on the bed beside her. She leaned her head against his shoulder. 

A long moment passed, both of them palpably determining whether they would be the first one to talk. “I can’t believe how many people turned out today,” he said. She felt a mix of gratitude for skirting the subject and a tinge of frustration at it all the same.

“Yeah, some of those girls I haven’t seen since high school,” she said. “They probably showed up to get gossip, but still.” 

Brian laughed. Her voice was flinty and she knew that; it was tangible just how much they both wanted to talk about Xander, the elephant in the room. 

“Did you see Hector? A whole crew of the ol’ racers showed up.” 

“Yeah, we chatted.” 

She took another sip from her beer. She wondered briefly what Xander and Letty were up to. Brian was watching her expression, measuring whether it was time to bring it up yet. 

“You good?” There it was. 

She took a sip of beer in answer. 

“I’m just,” she said, taking another sip, “in shock, I guess.” 

Brian leaned his elbows on his knees, nodding empathetically. “Everyone is,” Brian said. “What are you thinking?”

Mia swallowed, focusing on the dryness on her tongue from the beer. What came into her head first was unkind, and she tried to bite it back. She didn’t succeed. 

“What do you think about your father?” Alright, it didn’t bite as bad as she thought it was going to-- more curious than spiteful. 

Brian was quiet. He looked at his hands. 

“That’s different, I shouldn’t have brought it up.” 

“No, but I get the point.”

“I mean, what if someone like that-- someone like that to  _ you _ , I mean-- just showed up again one day? What if your father showed up here? Would you want Dom to be offering him to stay in our house-- stay with us and Jack?” 

“There’s no way in hell I would let that happen.” 

Mia nodded vigorously, holding her hand out in vindication. “I’m just trying to decide exactly how different  _ this _ is to  _ that _ .” She bit down on her teeth, thinking hard. “I don’t know what I’m thinking.” 

Brian looked at her, sliding a gentle arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head on him more, settling into the crook under his jaw. With all the emotion that welled up in her on seeing Xander, she needed a moment like this to get her thoughts together. 

He kicked in her fight or flight, that's what it was. There was everything else that stressed her about seeing him again-- all the questions, of course they were still there. It wasn't like they had ever left her subconscious, really. But there was something else, something about him arriving just when everything in their family was looking up again. 

He symbolized the very worst year in Mia's life. There were rough ones since then-- when Dom got out of prison, dealing with all of the trauma that he wouldn't name or discuss or even admit he had. There was the year that Brian came into their lives the first time, making Dom and Letty and their friends fugitives or dead, and leaving Mia alone in their house for a second time. 

But it was that first year of constant bad news that prepared Mia to deal with all of that. That year that she started middle school, and lost her father to the race track, the first brother to prison, and the other brother for reasons she could imagine as a child. 

Maybe Xander reappearing exactly when things were well again at the Toretto household was a good sign, then. A sign that they really were healing and growing and becoming a real family again after all. But she couldn't trust that. She couldn't trust Xander with that. Truthfully, she knew she couldn't depend on Dom for that familial foundation, either, and she feared even Brian may prove too much of a loose cannon in the long run. She was just trying to save up quiet moments like this for the next round of loss and loneliness. 

Putting that thought into words in her head struck a sore chord somewhere behind her breastbone. She sighed, hollow, and snuggled in closer to him. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” she said into his skin. She felt his jaw when he nodded. “When I was little, I always liked Xander more than Dom.” She could feel him tense just a little tiny bit, could imagine the way he screwed his brows together, scandalized, and she rushed to explain. “Xander gave me more attention, and he was nicer. You know how teenage boys can be, with a little sister trying to hang out. And after our mother left… it wasn’t like I knew a lot of kids my age that weren’t more interested in what Dom and Dad got up to in the garage.” She gave a laugh. “But then… Xander got all distant. Dad died, Dom went to prison, and I was left all alone with Grandma and Xander whenever he was home. He was the  _ last person _ in  _ my _ family still at home with me , and he knew that, and he still left.” 

“You said you didn’t remember him.” 

“I…” Mia bit her lip. “I remember things he did, not, like, details. Like I could tell you the way that Dom smiles or what expressions Letty makes, but not for Xander. Bigger stuff I remember.” 

Brian hummed in understanding, and bent his head toward her more, his cheek against the top of her head, and was quiet a long moment. She knew that she was being contradictory, and she knew that these kinds of things frankly confused Brian. He was  _ smart _ , he just needed a minute to computer everything Mia was throwing at him. She was angry and happy and sad all at once, and it was getting to be too much for her to think through, too. 

“Well, you’re glad he’s alive though, right?”

“Of course. It’s just…” 

“If he could’ve come home, why didn’t he?” 

She raised her brows at that: so succinct. “Exactly,” she sighed. “I don’t know what to think about all this.” 

He rubbed her shoulder. “Dom’s gonna do what’s best, right?” Brian said. 

Mia sighed. “He tries to, at least.” Brian rubbed his hand over Mia’s shoulder, soothing, but Mia could name a handful of times that Dom’s best intention hadn’t panned out quite right off the top of her head. She kept that to herself. 

“If Xander does end up staying in the house, and we feel like it’s not good, I’ll tell Dom. Hell, I’ll tell Xander myself.” 

She smiled into his neck. She savored the quiet moment, knowing how rare they had become for the two of them since the baby. 

“Wait,” she said. “Where’s Jack?” She sat up straight, ready to fly down the stairs and find him. 

“Whoa, whoa, I passed him to Rome. It’s under control.” 

She stood. “Has Rome ever held a baby in his life?” she all but hollered. She crossed the room in two steps, but before she could pull the door open, there was a knock on it. 

“Hey?” It was Letty. 

Mia opened it, peering back at Brian questioningly. “Hey?” 

“You know first aid?” 

Mia, taken aback, screwed her brows together and nodded. 

“Cool, Xander’s got a gunshot on his leg.” 

Mia felt her jaw drop-- “What?” 

“Hold on!” A third voice, from up the hallway in the upstairs bathroom, rang out. Xander, with the door mostly closed in on himself, reached out one hand to gesticulate. “It is true I have a gunshot wound, but I’ve got it handled and you don’t have to worry about it.” 

Mia marched past Letty, up the hallway and stood in front of the bathroom door with her hands on her hips. Xander put both his hands on the door, threatening to shut it if she tried to push her way in. 

“How the hell did you get a gunshot wound?” 

“Long story! I just wanted to get some new gauze from the market!” 

“ _ How the hell did you get a gunshot wound?” _ she repeated, unsatisfied by his sidestep. 

“Well,” he said, eyes darting anywhere other than right at him. He had a bruise on his cheek, just starting to turn blue, and Mia felt the tiniest little pang of guilt for that, but she squashed it under her metaphorical heel with practiced ease by this point. A little black eye he deserved-- a gunshot… less so. Probably. “I got shot.” 

Never mind. With that explanation, he deserved it. 

“Let me see,” she said, putting her hand on the door to push. He braced himself on the other side, hesitating to shut it in her face. 

“Seriously, I’ve got it handled,” he insisted. 

“What’s the problem up here?” It was Dom, coming up the stairs. 

“ _ Nothing _ .” Mia was hit with a strong sense of deja vu, stunned by it for a fraction of a second before she pushed on the door with both hands and all of her body weight. Surprised, Xander stumbled back a step before he tried to push back. But it was too late, and Mia had shoved herself into the bathroom. 

Leaning back against the vanity, to give her space and less casual than he thought it looked, Xander shot her a nervous grin. One of his hands lingered over his thigh. Bloody gauze, stained in a blotchy dark brown, was folded into a somewhat neat pile on the sink, one pant sleeve carefully rolled halfway up his thigh to reveal the gash that could only be from a bullet.

“You the first aid master around here now?” he said with a laugh. The trajectory had to have been from somewhere around his belly button and just grazing through a half inch of skin, fat and muscle. It was a dark pink, but it was just a flesh wound. 

Mia assessed that in one hot second, shaking her head and turning to the bathroom door, leaning up on her tiptoes to open the old cupboard doors above the door and pulling out the first aid kit she’d stashed there. 

“Sit on the toilet,” she commanded him. She sat on the edge of the bathtub opposite the toilet, beginning to pull out swabs and alcohol and gauze to dress it with. She poured the alcohol onto a cloth pad and carefully wiped the area around the wound. It looked like it might be too late for stitching-- he’d have a scar for sure. Xander tightened his jaw when the alcohol touched the raw red flesh. “I’m the ‘first aid master’ because I got my associates in nursing. Before we had to run. I was working in the hospital for awhile.” 

She almost thought he didn’t hear her over the pain as she discarded the first pad, replacing it with a new one. She dried it-- the heat coming off the wound was palpable even through the cotton. 

“When did this happen?” 

“Uh…” he said, knuckles turning white where he’d balled his hands into fists. He shrugged. “Last night?” 

She scrutinized him. “Why?” 

He popped his eyes open. “What? I don’t know, I pissed someone off.” 

She frowned deeply and pressed the bottom layer of the dressings maybe a bit too hard. 

As she started to wind the strips of gauze around and around his leg, he breathed easier. 

“You got your associates, though? That’s crazy. You thinking about continuing on?” 

“What, to a Bachelor's? I don’t know what schools would let an  _ ex-fugitive _ into their  _ nursing _ program.” 

Xander grinned at that. “Fair.” He ran a hand over the neat wrap when Mia tied it in place. “You’re good, though.”

“You should’ve gone to a hospital for stitches. That scar’s never gonna heal all the way.” 

Xander shrugged. “I’ll get a tattoo to cover it.” 

Mia frowned again. Try as she might, she still couldn’t keep all the racing thoughts at bay. She truthfully couldn’t remember the last conversation they’d had together. Everyone else could remember-- Dom, Letty, hell even Vince. But Mia couldn’t remember for the life of her, and she couldn’t tell if it was because they hadn’t talked one on one for so long, or because it was so extraordinarily normal, or because she didn’t hold onto it simply because she didn’t understand its significance. She’d cried over it months after Xander left, and she cried over it when the news came that he’d died. 

She wasn’t the only one who’d grown serious. When she came back to herself, pulling out of those thoughts, Xander was studying her face. The smug distance he kept up out in the backyard was gone. 

“You’ve grown up.” He said it softly, and it threw her off. That joy she’d stamped down welled up in her throat, threatening to choke her, and she squinted to keep tears back. 

“Don’t,” she said, showing him her palm. 

He opened his mouth to say something, but shook his head. “Alright.” There was more he wanted to say, and that she wanted to ask him. She just couldn’t trust herself to say anything without embarrassing herself. 

Mia glared at him now. “You’re just here for Letty, anyway.” 

He started to respond, to protest probably, but she stood and collected her first aid kit quickly, shoving it back into the shelf and going back to her room as fast as she could without so much as a glance back at Xander. 


	4. Chapter 4

Letty hustled down the stairs and followed Xander into the backyard, where he was already pulling out a chair to sit on. Roman-- from whom Tej was in the process of taking Jake, exasperation evident even as he side-eyed Xander-- tipped his head to Letty as she crossed the backyard. Han was leaned back in his chair, contently observing the drama with hands folded across his stomach.

  
"I didn't catch your name earlier," Xander said, pinpointing his attention on Han as he pulled his own chair up to the table. Han raised his brows, otherwise maintaining a cool, neutral expression.

"Han," he said. Xander nodded-- and unlike with Brian, didn't press for a last name. Seeing that Han wasn't going to offer more conversation, Xander took surveyed the other two, eyes landing on Jack. He smiled wide at Jack-- wider than would look natural on Dom, but fit Xander perfectly. Jack giggled, but ducked his head onto Tej's shoulder shyly. When Xander moved on, looking up at Tej, Jack stared at him.

"I didn't wanna ask earlier, 'cause it felt awkward and all, but he's--" he said, jerking his chin toward the kid, "Mia and Brian's, huh?

"Yeah," Tej said, leaving it at that and challenging Xander to say something about it.

"Cute kid."

"Uh huh," Rome said, giving Xander the same hard stare. Letty was pretty sure everyone knew what Xander was about to say.

"Was kinda surprised that he's, y'know, a white boy." Xander said it with a laugh, and Letty internally groaned as Rome and Tej shared looks, and even Han tilted his head. "Anyway,” Xander pressed on, “he's a good guy? Got a job and all?"

"He and I grew up in Barstow together. He’s a good guy."

"Barstow?" Xander asked. The tone was off, like an actor reciting his lines too mechanically. "You're from Barstow?"

"Yeah, born and raised," Roman said with a touch of pride.

Xander put a hand on his chin, thinking hard. "Barstow. You said your name was Pearce?" Roman nodded. "You weren't a derby driver, were you?"

Roman's face went slack with shock for a split second before he reeled his chin in. "Yeah I was, did you hear about me?"

"I'm pretty sure I saw you drive back in the day," Xander said, shaking his finger like he was just now remembering.

Too convenient, Letty recognized in the back of her mind. That must have been years ago, if Xander had seen Roman drive. No way he'd just happen to remember Rome’s name _and_ hometown.

"How about you, should I know you from somewhere?" 

Tej froze where he was pulling Jack's tiny hands off his necklace chain. "Ah, I just ran in the racing scene in Miami. That's how I know Bri, too." 

Xander nodded. "So he's always been a street racer, too." 

A leading question. All too familiar to Letty: this was almost identical to all the times that someone would slip up on the job for Shaw, and he'd let them talk circles before catching them in a bald lie and pouncing on it, like a cat playing with his food. It sent a shiver down Letty's spine. 

"Well, not always," Rome said, falling directly into Xander's trap. She almost wanted to intervene, to nip this in the bud before Xander got whatever he was gunning for, but frankly she was curious too. Brian said she would punch him if she found out how he got into the crew. 

Xander raised a brow, letting Roman figure out what can of worms he’d just opened. 

Han leaned into the conversation now. "I met Dom after Brian busted his operations in LA, something like seven years ago." 

"Hold on," Xander said. "I heard about the bust. How's Brian involved? A narc?" 

"He was the undercover cop behind the whole operation,” Han said. “He got too close, befriended the family, couldn't let them take ‘em in." 

Letty watched Xander as Han explained, amazed by just how well he sold the front of ignorance. 

Xander waited a beat, letting it look like he was absorbing this 'new' information, before setting his brows hard. "So, how's he and Mia figure into that?"

Rome and Han exchanged looks, realizing what kind of light this would paint Brian in. 

"They didn't get together till way later, right?" Xander pressed. The three sat still, like if they didn't move he might forget about it. "No way he got with her when he was an undercover cop." Still no response. "Right?" 

There it was. That was the leverage that Xander could use over Dom if it got heated between them later-- what kind of brother lets the guy who came in and tore up the family, let alone the guy who possibly slept with their baby sister while _undercover_ \-- what kind of brother lets that guy come back into the crew? Brian had been right: Letty would’ve punched him.

Rome looked at Letty as if she could fix his mistake. She shook her head. 

"We can't," Rome started, pausing to lick his lips. "We aren't supposed to talk about too much history while Letty's recovering," he said weakly. Letty scowled now, shaking her head again.

"Can't find a better scapegoat?" she snarled.

"But it's true! Right?" Rome looked to Tej for back up. Tej, hands full of an increasingly curious Jack, nodded along with him.

"Dom already put Brian through it when they got the guys who took Letty," Han reasoned. "Mia gave it to him, too." 

"Yeah, I understand Mia gave it to him," Xander said derisively. 

Masterfully done. It didn't look like the boys understood exactly how well Xander strung them along, giving him exactly what he wanted. There was no way that Xander didn't come into the conversation already knowing Roman and Brian were from Barstow, and that Brian was a cop. He had to have looked them all up-- had to have used some powerful database, too. In the span of five minutes Letty's understanding of Xander went from friendly if a little shady past friend to clever manipulator-- and one with connections. Not that those had to be mutually exclusive.

Though, now Letty knew a bit more about the crew as well. She couldn't hold that against him; it was good to know. She could have stood to learn it another way, maybe. 

Xander was keeping up the show, frowning at his hands before theatrically shrugging it off, just keeping a touch of troubledness in his expression as he looked back up at Han. 

"So what's your story?" 

Han frowned, eyes flitting over to the other two. "From Georgia. Got caught up in a car boosting ring, and stuff." He shrugged. “That’s how I got to ride with Dom and Letty in Mexico,” he said, nodding to Letty. 

“I like the sounds of that. ‘And stuff.’ What kinda stuff?” 

Han was perturbed by the question, as it was a bit of an unspoken rule not to pry like that. Tej and Roman furrowed their brows, too-- maybe nobody had ever thought to ask what “other stuff” might make a man run across the border and coop up with other traveling criminals. 

Han’s jaw twitched, before he shrugged coolly-- “Like Rome said, we can’t talk about that kinda history.”

Xander grinned. “So, like, drug trafficking, right?” 

Han stilled, only obvious in the minute way his neck tensed, and peered at Xander out of the corner of his eye. He enunciated his words carefully. “I can’t say.” 

The porch door creaked open. Xander turned to look, slow and measured, and cracked a smile at his brother in the doorway.

“Mia’s fixing up Dad’s room for you.” 

Xander grimaced, and Letty couldn’t tell if it was at Dom’s cold tone, or the prospect of staying in that room. Dom exchanged glances with everyone at the table as he strolled up to it, placing two beers in front of Xander. 

“One for you.” 

Xander’s grimace deepened. “I don’t drink.” 

Dom raised a brow and sat on Xander’s other side. “Pass it to Letty, then.” 

Xander obliged, and Letty popped it open. She studied Dom’s face as he glanced around the table. Letty wondered exactly how much Dom could read off the others’ expressions. Were there certain gives that she herself had, ones that she didn't know but someone who'd known her since childhood would read in an instant? 

"Saw your GTO out front." Dom said it offhandedly, peering over the rim of his bottle at Xander as he took a drink. "Looks like Dad's." 

Letty had noticed it on their walk down to the corner shop, too: Pontiac GTO 1967, restored purple paint job. Just like the one in the photo Ben had given to Dom the other day. 

An awkward silence fell then-- Letty expected Dom to fill it, and she raised his brows at Dom when he remained quiet. He played with the label on his beer, chewing on his lower lip subtly before glancing up at Xander. Xander, who had also been watching Dom peel off the corner of the bottle’s label, looked away sharply. “It’s really no trouble to get a hotel room.” 

Rome shifted uncomfortably.

“We decided we want you to stay,“ Dom said firmly.  “We’ve got the space, and it just makes sense. If you really wanna help Letty.” 

Xander stared at the bottle in Dom’s hand for a second longer until the backdoor swung open again, pulling him out of his thoughts. Mia and Brian stepped out, Brian’s arm over her shoulders. Mia’s arms were crossed, but her face was schooled into a disciplined look of apathy. 

“We got Dad’s room ready for you,” Brian said cooly. 

Letty cringed at how Xander snapped his head around to look Brian down, opening his mouth to say something before letting it go. “Thanks.” He was going to sit on his knowledge of Brian’s past, then. 

He put his hand palm flat on the table, using it to push himself to his feet and leaning over the table. The moment of him looming over Dom, and the way Dom tensed in reaction, made their differences starkly obvious: Xander was actually more slender than Dom, his muscles more compact and toned, his posture more loose and lax. Though they were equally tense at the moment, Dom held the tension in his shoulders where he flexed, ready for a fight, while Xander held it in his straight spine. 

“Well, I drove down from Vancouver today. If it’s alright, I’m gonna get to bed.” He stood and stretched casually. “Good to meet everyone,” he said, sticking his hand out to shake each of their hands, “Tej, Rome, Han,” he said, like a quiz for himself. He patted Dom’s shoulder in passing, smiling in Letty’s direction and crossing the yard to the porch where Brian and Mia were. He put out his hand to shake Brian’s, “Brian-- or, sorry, am I supposed to call you Officer?” 

Brian paused for a half second of surprise, brows furrowing and raising. “I’m not a cop,” he said, defensive. 

Xander smiled, friendly as ever, “You practice that line?” Without missing a beat, Xander moved on, smiling at Mia gingerly and going through the back door. Letty tracked it all with her eyes, snapping her attention to Mia when the door shut behind Xander. 

Brian looked at Tej and Rome with a light scowl-- “Who told him that I was a cop?” 

Letty didn’t have to turn to know that Tej pointed at Roman instantly, going off the scoff that Rome made. 

“Rome told him,” Letty said, “but he already knew.” She looked toward Dom, who raised a brow, then back at Brian and Mia. Brian tilted his head, concerned. “He’s done some research, is all.” 

“What makes you say that?” Rome asked loudly, not missing a beat. 

“Please, you think he’d remember a demolition derby from ten years ago? He looked that up about you, too. What’s alive that would name you as a derby driver? News articles?” 

“A police report,” Brian said. “At minimum, there’d be a report on the job we did for the feds before I got my badge back. In Florida.” 

“Y’all are reading into that too much. That wouldn’t even be public record yet,” Rome said, nipping their conspiracy theory at the bud.

“Who gets their death faked by the LAPD?” Letty countered. 

Dom shrugged, turning his head back in Brian’s direction. 

Brian balked. “The LAPD aren’t going around faking police-involved shootings. They aren’t super villains.” 

Dom shrugged again. Letty quirked a smile: it was true that of all the antagonists in their lives, the police almost seemed benign. Didn’t make them innocent, though. 

Caught up in her thoughts, Letty almost missed the exchange of looks between Dom and his sister. Dom nodded, turning to Tej, Roman and Han. 

“It’d be nice if you guys stayed in the neighborhood. Han, you still got a place on our couch.” 

Han shot a quick disdainful frown. “I think I’m gonna follow them to the hotel,” he said plaintively. “Don’t wanna have too many cooks in the kitchen,”

Dom tilted his head; “I woulda offered one of the rooms if it wasn’t so... “ he trailed off, refusing to say ‘weird.’ 

“Nah, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay in your… Grandma’s room, anyway,” Han said, softening it with a breathless chuckle. 

\--

So soon, Letty found herself at the table with only the immediate family. Mia sat on her other side, having taken Jack and sat him on her lap. Brian stood behind her. They were focused on Dom, who was sitting across the table from them still picking at the label on his beer. 

The dynamic fascinated Letty as they waited for Dom to speak first. 

Dom sighed. 

“I don’t trust the guy,” Brian said. 

“You found out about him last week, Brian,” Dom replied, quick and sharp. 

“This is my family, too,” Brian retorted plaintively. “You said so yourself.” 

“I agree with Brian,” Mia said.

Dom folded his hands, grit his teeth, and took a deep breath before looking at Letty. “Xander and Letty were friends since middle school.” He leaned his head to one side, then the other, weighing. “It’s my family too, and I think that given Letty remembering Xander at all, he can really help her.” 

Mia carefully measured the force with which she curled a hand into a fist and pressed it into the tabletop, still gently holding Jack with her other hand. “Are you not angry? Are you not pissed that after all these years he just shows up out of the blue?” 

Dom didn’t respond at first. Still mulling it over himself, he looked to the side, avoiding his sister’s attempt to hold eye contact. 

Dom looked at Mia’s fist on the table. “I feel like this is all a second chance, somehow.” Letty watched Mia’s eyebrows raise.

“I don’t feel like it’s a second chance, personally,” Mia said, “Because I don’t feel like he deserves a second chance.”

Dom pursed his lips. “I meant it felt like a second chance _for me_.” 

Mia shook her head in disbelief. “Really.” 

“Well, look: Letty shows back up, and that was clearly a second chance. Then Xander shows back up, doesn’t it feel the same?” 

Mia stewed, silently daring Dom to look at her and feel the full brunt of her glare. 

“We wanted to know why he left,” Dom reasoned. “This might be our only chance of really finding out why. At the very least, don’t you want some kind of closure?” He looked at her finally, warily. 

Her lips were pursed, brows set and unimpressed. But. 

Her shoulders slumped minutely. 

Mia glanced in Letty’s direction, and Letty had to force herself not to immediately avert her eyes. Sighing deeply, Mia looked back at her brother. 

“I don’t want him confusing Jack when he’s here,” she said, to which Dom raised a brow. “After this, chances are he’ll disappear again, and I don’t want Jack confused by that.”

“We can explain that to Xander.” 

She pursed her lips and bit the inside of her cheek, looking up at Brian who gave an encouraging nod. “Fine then.” 

\--

The next morning, Letty woke when Dom was still sleeping. She could smell something cooking, hear a faint sizzle from the kitchen downstairs. Still in her pajamas, she got up to investigate. 

A frazzled looking Mia stood in front of stove, spatula in hand, prodding half-cooked pancakes on the griddle. 

“Smells good,” Letty said, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe. 

Mia startled for a half of a second, looking up at her with wide eyes. 

“Thanks,” she said, “Good morning.” 

“Morning.” 

“Brian made some coffee if you’d like,” she said, nodding over her shoulder vaguely. “I was expecting Dom to be up by now.” 

Letty grabbed herself a mug and grabbed the pot with the other. The coffee was visibly gritty and didn’t smell great, and Letty filled her mug to near the brim. 

Mia flipped one of the pancakes, muttering under her breath. 

“Everything alright?” 

“Oh,” Mia said, flipping another cake. “Xander’s car was gone when I got up this morning.” 

“What?” 

Mia shrugged, but her shoulders were too tense. “Do you want to wake Dom up? These are about done,” she said. 

Letty raised a brow, but didn’t question her; she went back upstairs and opened the door slowly. 

Dom was rolled toward the wall, and Letty couldn’t suppress a smile at the way the blanket had wrapped tight around him. She sat lightly on the edge of his mattress and put her hand on his shoulder. It was like a muscle memory, the way she pushed and pulled his shoulder ever so gently. Dom made a sound at the back of his throat, turning his face into the pillow before looking over his shoulder at Letty, disoriented for only a moment before shaking it off and making another, questioning sound in the back of his throat. 

“Mia made breakfast,” she said. 

Dom wrinkled his nose and squeezed his eyes shut for a half second before sitting up. Letty hid her amusement in the endearing expression and stood to give him space to stand. 

“Give me a minute, tell her I’ll be right down,” he said as he stretched. 

Letty heard the front door open slowly as she made her way back down to the kitchen, and reached the bottom of the stairs just in time to see Xander close it behind himself, drink in one hand. 

Letty shook her head at him, maybe as a warning of the fallout that was sure to follow Mia’s realization that he’d snuck out so early for a _smoothie_. 

Xander smiled, sweet and innocent, and followed Letty into the back of the house where Mia was taking the last pancakes off the griddle. 

“Is Dom coming?” Mia asked, harried as she balanced the plate stacked tall with pancakes and a jug of milk. She glanced at Xander and the smoothie he placed on the counter to grab the milk from her and setting it on the dining table. The back door opened, signaling Brian’s timely arrival for breakfast with Jack in tow. Brian was briefly surprised to see Xander grabbing the glasses for breakfast, and Letty could see the way Mia watched her brother with barely contained contempt. 

For all that Letty superficially looked like the member of the team with the most issues, she was starting to understand that it probably wasn’t the case. 

Footsteps on the stairs alerted them that Dom was on his way, and Brian grabbed the high chair for Jack, Mia slipping into a seat and letting Xander grab the plates and utensils: five of them, which he set up for each of the others. Mia noted the absence of a plate for Xander himself as he took one more trip back to the kitchen to grab his smoothie. Letty saw her process this, her scowl turning darker when Dom appeared in his t-shirt and sweat pants, taking the last spot as Brian finished putting Jack up in his seat and took his chair on Jack’s side opposite Mia. 

“So you’re not going to eat the breakfast I made?” Mia asked sharply. 

Xander didn’t react at first, pretending not to realize it was directed at him. Eyebrows raised and knit together at her hostile tone, he smiled wide. “Smells good,” he said. “We weren’t ever a communal breakfast family before, I didn’t know you were gonna do this,” he said with a shrug. 

Mia’s brow twitched. 

Letty stabbed one of the pancakes with a fork and hefted it onto her plate, already wishing to get breakfast over with. She glanced across at Dom, who was carefully focused on his pancakes. He looked like he was still half asleep, pushing off dealing with the family drama so early. 

“So,” Dom said. “What’s your plan today?” he asked Xander. 

Xander took a long slurp. “I promised Ben’s Mom that I’d come by the restaurant, and I’m gonna see if any of my old buddies are still around. One of them used to own a skate shop down on Sunset, and I just got thinking last night that I’ve only seen photos of my tombstone so I’ll probably swing by there.” Xander tilted his head toward Letty-- “You’re welcome to tag along.” 

Letty straightened her back at the mention of a visit to the cemetery. She hadn’t been pressuring Dom to go with her, and she didn’t quite like the idea of going alone, but she _did_ want to see her stone, as well. 

“Sounds like a full day,” Dom said. There was a strange tone that Letty didn’t recognize. Dom’s eyes flickered to her, and she didn’t have time to react before he focused on his pancakes again. 

A tickling at the back of her neck told her what the tone was, even if it sounded foreign in Dom’s voice: jealousy. 

“You don’t have to come along to all of it, of course. Whatever sounds fun,” Xander said to Letty, catching on. 

“No, no, it’d be good for you to get out,” Dom immediately countered. Letty frowned, looking to Mia and Brian who were both too unhappily invested in their food to look at her. 

“I guess I’ll see how I feel as we go.” 

Xander shrugged, sipping at his smoothie and looking out the kitchen window. Dom, face still down, glanced up at Letty. His expression was neutral, but he was frowning slightly, his eyes clearly trying to broadcast a message she didn’t know how to read. 

If he felt some way, though, he could tell her. That’s what they’d agreed. 

Letty grabbed her fork and dug into her pancake. 

-

Letty drove-- Dom had insisted on it, muttering a comment about Xander’s track record to Letty under his breath. Letty wouldn’t refuse an offer to drive Dom’s Supra, anyway.

The first hour of their day ended up with them circling a shopping district a few miles from home, with Xander trying hard to remember exactly where his friend’s snowboarding supply shop had been. 

“Can you look it up on your phone?” 

“Ah,” Xander said, “I’ve only got a flip phone.” 

Letty almost slammed the breaks. “For real?” she said, irritated before adjusting in her seat so she could pull her smart phone out of the pocket of her jeans. Clicking it open with her thumbprint, she threw at him, taking yet another right turn as they circled the block once again. 

“I don’t even know what to look up,” he said, trying to hand it back to her without trying to search anything. “Turn left up here.” 

She took a left, about ready to just find parking where she could and make Xander walk the streets and find the damn shop, if it even still existed. 

“There it is! Knew it,” Xander said, leaning far up in his seat and pointing at one of the various facades. She glanced at the store front as they passed, shaking her head. “Ikey’s Snow Shop” the sign read. She pulled into the next parallel parking spot skillfully, taking a second longer to unbuckle and get out than Xander to give herself a moment to consider how good of an idea it was to tag along to all of Xander’s memory road stints. 

She continued to question her decision as she followed him into the musty little shop, as he made loud conversation with the shop owner-- a graying and small man who could be no one other than “Ikey” himself. It was hard to imagine them being friends until Letty remembered they likely hadn’t been in contact for an upwards of twenty years. Maybe back when Ikey’s skin was where it was supposed to be on his cheeks rather than sagging over his jaw, and his hair had some color, and if he were wearing ski clothes instead of a cheap, worn button down… Maybe then Letty could see him and Xander getting along. 

She was being unfair. Ikey invited them into the back office, where he promptly closed the door and grabbed some glasses, popping open a bottle of something dark. 

“Ikey, you know I don’t drink,” Xander rumbled, friendly but firm. “‘Nd she’s my driver today.” 

“Ah, shit,” Ikey said, recapping the bottle sadly. “And sorry, have we met before?” he asked, turning his attention to Letty. 

“I don’t think you ever did,” Xander said. “This is Letty, my brother’s--” he cut short, tilting his head at Letty. He shrugged. “It’s complicated.” 

“ _That_ brother?” Ikey asked, raising a brow. “The one I heard about way back when?” 

Xander winced: clearly whatever Xander had mentioned about Dominic ‘way back when’ wasn’t all good things. 

“I only got one brother.” 

Ikey gave Letty a considering frown. Letty held herself back from rolling her eyes, like she cared what this has-been thought of her. The two of them chatted, and Letty occupied herself with the decor. There were unframed photos set all along the back of the bookcase nearby-- always snow scenes, they pictured Ikey at various ages. One faded image showed him as a tot, buddled up in a thick snow jumpsuit with skiis on his feet, another as a teenager with a snowboard, yet another posed beside a horse-drawn carriage with what appeared to be his parents and siblings. One as an older man, with a woman and baby. The smallest one, wallet-sized, clearly showed Ikey and Xander with arms over each other’s shoulders, ski goggles pushed up to their foreheads, laughing. 

“And how’d you two meet? Up at a ski lodge, or?” 

“Sociology class,” Ikey said. “I’m more of a math and business guy-- the shop was my Dad’s and I figured I’d get an Associates to help. Sociology was a bitch of a class for me, but that’s Xander’s _area_.” 

“I helped him study for soshe, he helped me with my stats class, it was a symbiotic relationship.” 

Now that threw Letty off. “You went to college?” 

“Community college, yeah,” Xander said, then scratched his chin pensively. “You wouldn’t have known that, I think,” Xander posited, mostly to himself. “Well, I just wanted to see if the shop was still around, Ikey. Good to see you, man.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” his friend said. “Hey, you gotta come by the house sometime. You remember Jean? We got married, about fifteen years ago now.”

“Shit,” Xander said. “Congrats.” 

Ikey grabbed a photo frame off his desk and flipped it around for Xander and Letty to see-- on a park bench sat Ikey, another woman with grayed red hair and a boy around ten years old. Xander took the photo. 

“No shit? That’s your kid?” The kid had auburn hair and Ikey’s eyes, and it was a dumb question. Yet, by his tone and his baffled expression, Xander’s question was genuine. Dumb but genuine. Letty might hold onto that description. 

“Yeah, no joke. A lot’s happened since you’ve been around, Cage,” Ikey said, mostly teasing, but Letty could tell there was a tinge of sadness to his words. 

That familiar shadow of melancholy fell over his face. Letty itched, feeling restless as silence stretched. 

“Hey, you know what? Do you know where the rest of the crew ended up?” Xander asked suddenly, tearing his eyes off the photo and handing it back to Ikey. 

“Oh, the ‘Zone’ crew?” He ran his hand through his thinning gray hair. “Let me think, there was Punt, Yaro and Lena, right?” He scratched under his chin. “Last I talked to Lena, she works for the LA Times, and Punt got a good gig with some film company. I’m not so sure about Yaro.” 

“You got any contact info?” 

Ikey frowned. “Sorry, man.” He shrugged. 

“I’ll think of something,” Xander shrugged. “Good seeing ya, say hi to Jean for me.” 

\--

“He seemed nice,” Letty said after her GPS had led them back to the interstate. Xander was unusually quiet, and it was starting to get to her. 

He hummed a noncommittal answer, barely half-listening. 

“Who were the others he mentioned? Punt and, uh, Lena?” she continued, pushing for some kind of conversation as the GPS directed her to exit, the exit lane blocked by stop and go traffic for the next half mile. It was going to be a while before they got anywhere. 

“Oh,” Xander said, finally being pulled out of his own world. “We used to put some videos together. Yaro was a camera and editing guy, Lena tipped us off on issues we could focus on, Punt was our distributor. Ikey sourced all the gear we needed. We were a good crew.” His voice as he explained this was nearly monotone, his mind still partially elsewhere. 

“Xander Zone,” Letty said, keeping herself from chuckling at the title. “Ben showed us one of your videos.” 

“Yeah, yeah, Ben was the original camera guy. He got too busy to keep doing it later, though, and I met Yaro in a class that Ikey and I took together. Punt was the one who figured out we could sell copies if we got the right equipment. We never ended up selling copies of any of Ben’s stuff” 

Letty nodded along. The GPS continued directing her to the grocery store they’d agreed to stop at to buy a few dozen flowers before the cemetery. She turned in and found a parking spot, not moving to turn the engine off just yet. 

“You don’t seem so happy after finding Ikey’s shop,” Letty said, hand on the gear shift. “Why not?” 

Xander looked surprised, then complacent. He shrugged. “I don’t know. Wasn’t what I was expecting, I guess.” 

“People grow up,” Letty said patiently. 

Xander breathed a laugh and pulled his door’s handle to crack it open. “I guess most people do.” 

\--

The cemetery sprung into view on the hillside once they got close. One moment they were in the suburbs, driving past strip malls and residences, and then the entire left side of the road was full of tombstones and manicured lawns full of plaques.  Letty pulled into the second entrance, like Xander suggested. 

Seated on a folding chair near the entrance, a man beckoned them to lower their window. 

“Evening, folks,” the man said. “Can I help you find your way today?” 

Letty had a half second to wonder “ _huh?_ ” before Xander leaned over to answer in her place. 

“Just visiting the Toretto plot,” he said, pointing off to the right. 

“Ah,” the man said. “There was another visitor earlier, perhaps you can catch her before she leaves.” 

“Thanks for the head’s up, maybe my aunt!” Xander smiled wide, so obviously fake to Letty after his quiet episode earlier. 

Xander directed her to go down the road curving to the right. The cemetery was on a sloping hillside, obscuring the far corners from view. They were heading down the hill toward the lower end of the property, until Xander pointed for her to hang a left and park about halfway down a long stretch of road running along the far side of the cemetery. 

“I wanna see whoever he said was visiting-- it would probably be a shock for a cousin or somebody if I walked up on them in the cemetery after all these years,” he said with a laugh. He ducked out of the car, leaving the door open as he leaned on the hood. Letty followed, peering in the same direction that he was. A little red SUV was parked some three hundred feet down the hill, a tall woman in a pantsuit with curly hair pulled into a pony tail stood among the graves. 

In another section near her, a rather squat woman with wispy blond hair was kneeled over another plot, pulling up the embedded flower vase, a bouquet on the ground beside her. A little girl stood by, holding a small bouquet of flowers. 

Clear on the other end of the cemetery was another small group of people, far enough away that all Letty could make out was their black hair. Another young man sat by himself aways from the others under a big tree, just watching and sipping from a coffee cup. 

“Well?” Letty asked, turning to Xander to ask if the coast was clear or not. Xander didn’t even flinch, eyes glued to the first woman Letty had spotted. 

Xander looked stricken. It was a new look for him, and Letty took another glance at the woman. Did Letty know her? She squinted, trying to determine any details-- she was probably just under six feet, and her clothes fit her well-- custom tailored, perhaps. Her hair was a medium brown. 

“Let’s get back in,” Xander said, near breathlessly before quickly sitting and closing his door. He was shaken, and Letty followed suit without complaint

“Are you okay?” 

“Fine,” he said immediately. “I’m fine. She _cannot_ see us, though.” He peered past Letty and out the driver side window, checking if he still had a vantage to see her from. When he found that he didn’t, he settled back in his seat, making fists with his hands and then stretching his fingers out wide, staring at nothing. 

Letty turned the key halfway so she could roll down the windows an inch. “Who is she?” she asked, trying not to be visibly unsettled by his nervous energy. 

Xander misaligned his jaw, frowning. 

“I knew her?” 

Xander nodded. 

Letty rolled her eyes-- so he wouldn’t _tell_ Letty who she was. She racked her brain for an idea of who would spook Xander so badly. Who would visit his grave, all these years later, without knowing that Xander was actually alive? 

Dom had pointed someone out in a picture at Ben’s place. A girlfriend of Xander’s, but she couldn’t remember her name. 

“You dated her.” 

Xander winced-- “Is that a guess, or do you remember that?” 

“Dom showed me a picture.”  
Xander rolled his eyes, but nodded. “Charlie.” 

Letty snapped her fingers, “That’s the one.” She glanced out the window to confirm that she, too, did not have a vantage to see Charlie from her seat in the car. “Dom was surprised to hear you broke up with her before the end of, uh…” 

“End of sophomore year? Yeah.” Xander sighed forlornly. “I was fucking stupid. I thought she was moving on from me so I broke it off before she could. I was still gone on her, and apparently she felt the same about me and I was too stupid to see it.” He cringed further, sinking down in the passenger seat. 

“The one that got away then, huh?” 

“Please, Ben used to say that all the time.” He dragged a hand over his face. “He would say that when all _three_ of us were together. God it was so stupid, ‘cause we stayed friends through all of that, and Ben kept trying to get us back together-- and I mean _he kept at it_ . I think one of the last texts he sent me was about how Charlie was asking about my dating life. That’s _seven years_ after we broke up.”

“That’s kind of....” Letty said, quiet and gentle, the teasing smile slipping into something a bit more pitying. It was _sad_. 

“Depressing?” Xander provided. That worked, too. Letty nodded. 

“She got married, huh?” 

Xander looked out his side window abjectly.

“And she doesn’t know you’re alive? Do you think she’d--” Xander put his hand up and cut her off. 

“I wouldn’t want her to.” He shook his head, looking at his hands. “That ship has sailed.” He sighed despondently. “If I could go back in time with what I knew now? I don’t know if I’d stop myself from breaking up with her. She’s happy in her relationship, and I’m... happy too.” 

Noting how he danced around mentioning his own relationship and tucking that away for future investigation, Letty put her hand on his arm. He looked at it, then at her, and Letty realized she may well be the first one to touch him without his directly asking for it, sticking out a hand to shake or having a wound to bandage. Just touch him. She took her hand back. 

Letty cleared her throat and frowned. She racked her brain for a new thread of conversations. “If you always hung out with Ben _and_ Charlie, why did Ben know you were alive and not her?” 

Xander winced again. “Letty,” he said, turning toward her in his seat. “I know you don’t remember me very well, so you’ve pretty much known me for a day, but you’ve gotta understand that I make stupid decisions and feel compelled to stand by them.” 

Letty couldn’t hold in her shocked laugh. “That’s your reasoning? Because you decided?” 

“It’s... complicated. It would be complicated to talk to her, so I just avoid it.” 

She raised a brow at that. “I’m going out on a branch here but, that’s why you didn’t come home either, isn’t it? After you ran away, I mean.” 

For half a second, he was a deer in the headlights of the question. “Well, like I said, it’s complicated.” He looked out the windshield for dramatic effect, which was crushed when he jolted in shock. “Oh _shit_ ,” he said, ducking his head below the dashboard. Muffled by his own knees, he said, “They’re driving this way!” 

Letty looked ahead, and sure enough the red SUV was making its slow way up the perimeter road they were parked on. In the moment of panic, Letty just stared as car approached, overtook, and passed them. Charlie was driving, and Letty may have seen her peer down from the SUV window at the low-lying Supra as they passed, a fleeting glance. 

“They’re gone,” Letty said, watching in her side view mirror as they turned and disappeared out of view. Xander sat back up in his seat, looking out the back window to make sure of it himself. 

“So, you’re never going to speak to her again?” Letty asked skeptically. 

“That’s the plan,” Xander said coolly. “I’ve coasted by these past fifteen or so years, what’s another fifteen?” 

Letty raised a brow. “And then you turn fifty five and die and never have to deal with it.” 

“Precisely,” he said, sardonic grin in place. “Let’s go on down.” 

Letty turned the car back on, cautiously maneuvering the side of the cemetery where tombstones and obelisks were placed precariously close to the edge of the road, and parked under the tree that Xander indicated. The ground swelled up a small hill directly to the right of the car, and this is where Xander headed immediately. A dark gray granite marker sat atop the hill, as well as a few surrounding plaques. Xander, intent on these, climbed the hill in a matter of seconds and squatted in front of the marker. He glanced over his shoulder at Letty with a silent ‘here it is!’

The white letters and a neat floral pattern at the top left corner were carved into the stone, contrasting the dark granite. The years were printed there, literally written in stone. 

Leticia Ortiz  
1979-2012  
Beloved daughter, sister, and friend to all  
Sleep Tight

It hit her, actually seeing the stone before her eyes. Daughter, sister-- Dom had not mentioned her family once. Why hadn’t he mentioned them? Letty’s heart was beating in her throat as her knees threatened to go out and she kneeled in front of the stone, as if getting a closer look would make it make sense. She had siblings. She didn’t even remember she had siblings. 

“Surreal shit, huh?” Xander knocked his shoulder against hers lightly. She just nodded, desperately trying to swallow hard enough to put her heart back in her chest where it belonged.

She glanced at the nearby tombstones, immediately recognizing the surname on them-- Ortiz-- but could not focus long enough to read the rest of their inscriptions. It was more overwhelming than she expected. It felt like she needed to crack a window or drink some water. Xander’s hand on her shoulder steadied her somewhat, and she took the bouquets he held out to her in a loose grasp. 

He dug out the flower vase where it was embedded in front of the stone, gingerly standing and walking the ten feet to a water spout. He seemed to walk slow, taking ages to fill it up and return, placing it carefully back in place and taking one of the bouquets from her hands. He removed half of the carnations from the one bouquet and set them in the vase.

“Where are you?” she asked, turning away from her tombstone. She could hear how flustered and short of breath she was. 

“Yeah,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go.” He led her down one side of the slope, up to a large red granite monument. In a swirling script, “Toretto” stood in relief to the stone face. Several tombstones and plaques of the same red granite littered the fifteen foot radius of the monument. Glancing at them, Letty spotted a dozen Torettos with unfamiliar given names. 

“There’s a lot of you,” she commented as Xander scanned the area. 

Xander gave an awkward laugh. “Yeah…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Our Great Grandfather, Aldo, was the first one to set up in LA-- he’s over there,” Xander said, pointing out one of the larger stones. “His son was Stefano,” he said, pointing to another stone, “and Stefano was uh… my Dad’s Dad.” He looked at Letty out of the corner of his eyes. “I’m not a great historian, here.” Letty laughed. 

“Aldo opened the Toretto Market, but the original building was demolished a long time ago. Maybe it burned down,” he said with a shrug. “Stefano helped build the new market and the house.” He shook his head. “And Stefano met my Grandmother Maria in the new market.” 

“What about the garage? That must be a newer thing,” Letty asked. 

“Oh, for sure. My Dad, Luis,” he said, pointing out a red granite plaque with bronze gilded lettering, “opened that after he inherited the house.” Xander strolled over to the plaque. Letty followed him, and they had a moment of silence standing over the grave.

“It must have been hard,” Letty said. She didn’t know what compelled her to say that, but she wanted to say _something_. The plaque had a small plastic square, where a faded photo was displayed. It was difficult to make out his face, but Luis was smiling in the photo, crouched in front of a car. He had brown hair and a thin smile, like Mia. Letty didn’t recognize him. 

The plaque was wide, and had space for another name. 

Xander let out air-- not quite a sigh. 

“Don’t tell Dom this,” he said, eyes glued to the plaque, “but he used to send letters to our Mom, and he’d talk about you just about as much as me or Mia. Luis didn’t say this, but he expected you and Dom to get married right out of high school. I mean,” he said, using his hands as he talked, “he wasn’t going to push for it, but he expected it.” 

“Really?” Letty’s face burned. “What did you Mom say?” 

Xander didn’t move a muscle, considering the plaque still. “She never replied.” 

Letty froze where she stood and it felt like the wind was knocked out of her, and she bit her tongue. Right, because their mother left them as children. A shiver went down Letty’s back, and she realized how overcast it had become. She surveyed the cemetery-- the other family she had spotted far away was gone, and an eerie feeling settled in her stomach. The young man on the bench was still there, sipping his coffee. He might have nodded to her, and she averted her eyes quickly. 

Xander moved on, not noticing the shift in their surroundings. He walked a few short feet to another plaque. The flower vase had already been pulled out and half a dozen red tulips were placed inside. 

ALEXANDER “CAGE” TORETTO  
1978-2002  
Gone too soon

Someone had taken a copper nail and tried to scratch out “ALE,” leaving it as “XANDER.” The same person etched “LEGENDS NEVER DIE,” in messy block letters to the right of the years. What looked like a shitty sketch of a skateboard that had been polished over and over again until it was only faint took up the bottom right corner of the plaque. 

“That’s kinda fucked up,” Xander said. “Putting my name in quotes like that.” 

“Well, is that your legal name?” Letty asked, reasoning. 

Xander looked at her with a half-amused, half-exasperated frown. “ _Yes_ . I changed it _years_ before I died.” 

Letty shrugged. She was momentarily distracted from the eerie feeling from a moment ago, but shrugging made chills go down her spine once again. She glanced around again. She jumped with a dose of adrenaline panic when she caught a glimpse of an approaching figure. A car was parked behind the Supra, and the figure was quickly scaling the small hill toward them, and Letty stepped out of their way as they passed her in a whir of brown hair and black clothes, and grabbed Xander’s shoulder. Xander flinched hard, looking at the newcomer in shock. 

“You really are pathetic, aren’t you?” they exclaimed in Xander’s face, pointing at up his face, accusatory. 

“Wh-” 

It was Charlie. She’d come back around. 

“I saw you hiding over there,” she said, jabbing her thumb in the direction of where they’d been parked. “I don’t blame you. All these years and I never once saw you come around!” 

Xander was stunned, caught entirely off guard. “I’m sorry,” he managed weakly, but that didn’t placate her one bit. 

“A little late, isn’t it?” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “A little late for _him_ ,” she said, jutting her chin toward the plaque they were standing over. 

Xander followed the gesture and stared at his plaque for a second. 

“Wait,” he said, the shock seeping out of his voice, almost amused. Charlie raised an impatient and suspicious eyebrow. Xander glanced at Letty, a small disbelieving smile in place. “Who do you think I am?” 

Charlie scowled and crossed her arms, giving him a long hard look and Letty caught on: she thought he was Dom. Of _course_ she thought she knew who he was: the pathetic brother of her high school flame. 

Her eyes flickered to Letty and there was a shadow of an eye roll. Suddenly she snapped her attention onto Letty, then quickly back to Xander. Her scowl involuntarily relaxed, her jaw dropping slightly. She swallowed, and scowled weakly again. 

“You’re…” she started to say to Letty, her voice trailing off weakly. “You’re _dead_ ,” she said with wide eyes refocusing on Xander. Her eyes flew to his hands, where his sleeves came up just short of covering his wrists, where his sleeves of tattoos ended. Her jaw went openly slack. “ _What the fuck?_ ” she asked breathlessly. 

Xander rubbed the back of his neck stiffly. “Surprise?” 

Charlie shook her head, unwilling to believe. “You’re dead,” she repeated.

“I’m not.” 

“Prove it,” she said, tightening her resolve and her arms where they crossed her chest. She nodded to Letty, “You too.” 

“Right here?” Xander asked. Letty glanced over her shoulder to the road; her SUV was parked, driver side door not even shut behind her. Another woman peered out of the passenger seat up toward them. 

Charlie nodded. “Otherwise I’m crazy. Tell me something only you would know.” 

He stared at her, stiffening again to the shock of being face to face with _her_ , _Charlie_ , the _one that got away_ , the _one that was about to tear him (Dom) a new one_. 

“Uh…” he said. “How about this: we told everybody at school that I slept over at your house every other week and let them all believe I was sneaking in and sleeping with you, but we really just had movie nights with your parents with horribly dubbed Brazilian movies.” 

Her expression softened, the hint of a smile, but she crossed her arms. “Ben knew that. My parents knew that, and my Dad had to have a talk with your Dad to explain it all ‘cause he didn’t want you getting me pregnant.” 

Xander snorted and closed his eyes, thinking hard. 

“Okay,” he said. “Remember when you told me you were bisexual and you thought I would hate you? I was the first person you ever told.”

The crease between her brows abated. “I told my parents about that. And my wife.” 

Letty scoffed, and Xander shook his head. 

“How about this,” Xander said, suddenly solemn. “One day I woke up and saw you crying, and you saved my life. Straight up, I never told anyone but that day turned my life around.” 

Charlie furrowed her brows again, tilting her head to the side like Xander was speaking in tongues, until realization dawned on her. She screws her brows tight again, frowning deeply, and gasps shortly. In slow motion, Letty watches as she tears up. 

“It’s really you?” she asks, voice small and choked. 

He nodded, and she broke. Her face crumpled and she took a gasping breath before the first tear fell. She reached out, put her hands on his shoulders and staring at them before taking another gasping breath. He reached out to her in return, and then she was shaking in his arms, shoulders heaving as she sobbed all but silently. 

Letty stood back awkwardly, allowing them space. The woman Charlie left in the car-- her wife?-- had gotten out and was leaning against the door now. Charlie cried into Xander’s chest, clutching his shoulders, for a good forty seconds before forcing herself to hold her breath, wiping madly at her wet cheeks with the backs of her hands. She took a final steadying breath and stepped back, cheeks reddened where she rubbed them too hard. She kept a hand on his arm.

“Are you--” another shuddering breath, “how are you?” She said it in such a way that Letty knew it meant something else, something more beneath the question. “Are you okay?” 

Xander smiled, as gentle and tender as Letty had seen him, a bit misty-eyed himself. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m doing okay.” 

“Are you,” she said, wavering for a moment, “happy?” 

He lowered his eyes and nodded slowly. “I am.” 

Her brows wrinkled together again, threatening to burst into tears again. A shaky, watery smile spread. She wanted to speak, but she held back as she would clearly begin crying all over again if she weren’t careful. Measuring her breaths, she put a hand over her face. 

Letty averted her eyes, deeply uncomfortable, and watched Charlie’s partner climb the hill toward them instead. She was a petite woman with thick brown hair and tawny skin. She was dressed more handsomely than Charlie, with a suit jacket and skirt and sensible stockings; her thick hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her moon round face was pinched with concern as she came up behind Charlie. Charlie jumped when she placed a hand on her shoulder, rubbing her eyes frantically again. 

“Xander, this is Miriam,” she said through a gasp. 

“Xander…?” Miriam said. Letty tracked the woman’s eyes as she looked between Charlie, Xander and the plaque they all were standing over. 

Charlie paled. “You can see him, right?” Miriam gave her a disbelieving look, nodding. “Oh thank god.” Miriam turned her disbelief on Xander. 

Xander held his hand out to the wary woman first. He held her hand after the shake finished though, peering at her and cocking his head. “Do I know you?” 

“Thomas Sato’s sister,” Miriam said. 

“Oh shit, cool,” he said, forcing some enthusiasm. “And how’d you two…?” 

The couple looked at each other, communicating something silently before Charlie shot him a guilty look. “Actually, at your funeral.” 

“We were in law school together, too,” Miriam added. 

“And now we’ve got two kids,” Miriam chimed in. An odd addition in Letty’s opinion. 

“And _two_ kids,” Xander repeated slowly, computing exactly what that meant. 

“One of whom,” Miriam continued, placing a hand on Charlie’s elbow, “we need to go pick up.” 

“Right,” Charlie said, hand still in Xander’s-- and Letty couldn’t help but notice how very aware Miriam was of that. She tugged subtly on Charlie’s sleeve. Charlie waved her off toward the car, saying, “I’ll be right there.”

Miriam looked at her dubiously, before rolling her eyes. She gave a small smile and wave to Xander, then headed back to the car. 

Charlie swallowed thickly, still not in the clear as far as the threat of tears. She placed her hand lightly on Xander’s chest and looked at him intently. 

“You know all I ever wanted was for you to be happy.” Letty couldn’t see Xander’s expression from her angle, but she could see the way his hand fumbled at the hem of his own shirt. He nodded jerkily. “This is like a dream,” she said, and tears were threatening to fall again. She leaned her forehead over the hand on hsi shoulder. “This is horrible, but I--” her voice broke and she breathed another ragged breath. “When you died, I was almost relieved. I spent so much time back then worrying about you, you know? I thought, at least he can’t get himself hurt anymore. That’s horrible.” 

“No, no!” he reassured her, rubbing circles into her upper arm. 

“You know,” she said, looking back up at him. “I’ve visited here once a month, since…” she trailed off. “Almost every month, at least,” she added sheepishly. 

Xander, surprised, hesitated a second before he sputtered, “Really?” Charlie just nodded. 

“And _you_ ,” she continued, “You’ve been out there the whole time! That’s what’s really horrible.” She said it playfully, an attempt to disguise her honest feelings. She laughed wetly, and he laughed with her. 

 “You should meet them,” she said suddenly, dropping her hand off him and making space between them. “My kids, I mean. We’re staying at my parents’ place-- my Mom’s-- and you can come by any time. Come over tonight.” 

“I can try to,” Xander said, smile audible. “Mia is a bit territorial over meals, I think.” 

“Don’t let me step on family time,” she said. “Call ahead if that goes south, though. I’ll get food going!” She turned toward where Miriam was leaning against the car, body language projecting her restlessness to get going. 

“I don’t have your number,” he called after her.  

“Oh,” she faltered as she got to the vehicle, hand on the door. “It’s the same from high school!” She closed the door and waved through the window, Miriam walking around the front of the car to reclaim her passenger seat. 

Letty watched them drive off, leaving them in the all but empty cemetery. Xander stood near perfectly still for a long moment before looking to his feet. There was a faint smile on his face, but Letty was surprised to see a bit of redness around his eyes, a tenseness to his brows where they creased together. Letty breathed a laugh. 

“Huh?” Xander asked.

“I think she would’ve decked you if you were Dom,” she said. 

Xander cocked his head to the side before a grin spread on his face. “She totally would have,” he agreed. “Shit, there’s a lot about her I wish I could tell you.” He rubbed the back of his head and squatted beside his grave before plopping onto the ground. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, and Letty let him have a moment as she sat beside him. 

“God I missed her.” he said softly to himself.

\--

Ben’s mother adored Xander. She brought him horchata when he asked for water, and refilled his rice twice even when he insisted he was done eating. When she turned her back to them Xander slid half of it onto Letty’s plate. 

“You’re sure you don’t want more pepian?” she asked him for the fifth time. 

“I’m really sure, thank you.” 

Ben was grinning at Xander from behind the fist he leaned his chin on. Ben adored Xander too, Letty observed. 

“Thanks Mom,” Ben said as she retreated to the kitchen again. It was a small hole in the wall location, no more than fifteen feet from side to side and about three times as far to the back wall from the door. The tables were simple, the kind of plastic-wood that you’d get at any ma and pop deli shop. The decor was homey, and the walls were covered in hand painted scenes of Central America. Framed photos of Guatemalan food and clothing and villages were hung sporadically, no doubt Ben’s own work.

“I can’t believe you hadn’t talked to Charlie before,” Ben said, shaking his head. Xander had recounted the cemetery encounter as soon as they sat down. “You’re lucky she _didn’t_ throw a punch.” 

“Like my sister did?” 

Ben’s eyebrows shot up. “Little Mia?” 

“Right on the jaw.”

Ben’s shock turned to somewhat mitigated glee. “That sucks, but you did--” 

“Deserve it, I know.” Xander finished for him. Ben laughed, and laughed loudly. He was so at ease with Xander, eyes almost never leaving him Letty felt near invisible. As if he could read her mind, his eyes flitted to her and then back to Xander. 

“Are we really not allowed to tell her anything about back then?” 

Letty rolled her eyes hard. 

“Let me guess, you wanna tell her about Charlie getting banned from our house?” 

“Precisely, yeah.” 

“ _What_?” 

Xander held his tongue, looking between her and Ben. 

“Welllll,” Ben said, talking slow enough that Xander could interrupt him if he really wanted to, “she got in a fist fight with Dom.” 

“Which--” Xander interjected before Letty could react, “is ironic seeing how Vince broke my nose before that.” 

Ben scoffed. “Y’know, rest in peace and all, but fuck that guy.” Xander snorted. 

“Wait, how’d that get her banned?” 

Xander pursed his lips. “Poor little Dom got a little black eye and Daddy decided he couldn’t stand this vicious girl being around him anymore.” 

“Seriously?” Thinking back, Charlie was only an inch or so shorter than Dom, and it was easy to imagine her as a scrappy teenager.  “That’s fucked up.”

“I heard Vince had a thing for Mia after Dom came back,” Ben said.  

Xander flinched like he’d been burned. “What?” 

Ben shrugged-- “I thought that was fucking creepy, but wasn’t none of my business. I wasn’t gonna go get into a pissing contest with Vince.” 

Xander shook his head, leaning an elbow onto the table and pointing at Ben. “Y’know the guy she’s with was an undercover cop when they met?” 

Ben grimaced, and so did Letty-- should she try and intervene on Brian’s behalf here? He didn’t seem so bad, even if he had been a cop… She opened her mouth to try to put in a good word, but Xander was already talking.

“So,” Xander said, pushing on. “What do you think of Miriam?” 

Ben bit his lip. “She’s good for Charlie.” Ben paused, long enough to seem like that’s where he wanted to end it. “She tutored Charlie in their grad classes after you died. ‘Died.’” He ran his hand through his hair. “It took her like, three years to get Charlie to go on a date. You’re not gonna try anything, are you?” 

Xander scoffed. Ben’s mother came back around with another glass of horchata and set it in front of Xander despite his attempt to wave her off. Ben waited until she puttered off to the kitchen again to continue. 

“You still cruising, or has Xander Cage finally settled down?” 

Another scoff, and Xander’s eyes slid to Letty without any answer to Ben’s question. He shrugged. 

“Hey, hey, why’re you looking at her? I’m the one asking the questions,” Ben said jokingly, not about to let Xander sidestep the question. 

Xander shrugged again. “I don’t know if I want word getting back to family,” he said. “One way or another.” 

Ben gave him a long hard look, reading him like Letty could never. “Shit, so it’s something serious?” 

Xander shot him a scandalized look. “I said I don’t want to talk about it!” 

“But there _is_ an ‘it’ then?” 

Xander pursed his lips and cocked his head, unamused. Ben put his hands up. “Fine, fine! Keep it to yourself, then.” 

“Well what about you?” Xander redirected smoothly. “Still too cripplingly shy to talk to anyone?” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Ben said, swatting at him across the table. “I’ve got anxiety, you know that. And yeah, I _am_ seeing someone.” His annoyed frown turned to an excited smile when he said, “You wouldn’t believe who set us up. An old mutual friend of ours. ” 

Xander scratched the bridge of his nose, scrunching it. “Not Calvin, is it?” 

Ben grinned and nodded. 

“You still talk to him, too?” 

“Hey, you said it yourself: I’m too shy to talk to new people.” Ben took a sip from the horchata his Mom gave him (which, notably, was smaller than the one she poured out for Xander and Letty). “He’s doing good, y’know? Got married a few years back, too. His husband’s a restaurateur, and gave us a bunch of pointers opening this place up.” He glanced around the semi-dingy restaurant. “Calvin would kill to get some renovations in here, but I don’t wanna owe him any favors,” Ben laughed. 

Xander laughed with him. 

Letty was missing something. 

“Everybody’s getting settled down around here, huh?” Xander asked, and Ben nodded along. 

“Never imagined that,” Ben said in agreement. 

“Well, y’know,” Xander said, waving his hand with implications that Letty didn’t get, “A lot’s changed.” 

A weird truism. Something they didn’t want to spell out for Letty. She frowned to herself and sipped the horchata. 

“I wanna knooooow about your ‘relationship’,” Ben whined. Xander rolled his eyes, checking over his shoulder for Ben’s Mom. He cocked his head toward Letty now. 

“This gonna stay here?”

Letty blinked and nodded. She had no reason to go running directly to Dom with _everything_. 

“We’ve been dating almost a year,” he said with a sheepish smile, “and I’ve met the family and all, so it’s sort of serious. Like exclusive-serious.” 

Ben looked impressed if not for his smirk. “And that’s all you’re gonna tell.” He sounded more exasperated than disappointed, rolling his eyes. 

Xander looked at Letty out of the corner of his eye again and nodded. For all this kind of side eyeing and skirting around her that had been grating on her nerves, this instance was acceptable. At least this was something _new_ Xander didn’t want her to know about, not something about her _own_ past. Although it didn’t make her any less viscerally curious. 

Ben folded his hands and tilted his head toward Letty, mouth quirked in a half frown. “Well, if he’s not gonna give us anything interesting, what about you? You and Dom still a _thing,_ or...” 

Letty laughed lightly at his petulance. “Oh, I don’t know…” she started. Xander perked up expectantly, though, and she shook her head with a sigh. “We’re doing the friends thing.” 

Ben hid his laugh and flash of a smile behind his glass, glancing at Xander.

“What’s funny?” Letty asked indignantly. 

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just, _somebody_ might be happy to hear that.” 

“Shut up,” Xander said sharply. He was gripping his own glass and glaring sharply. 

Letty raised a pointed eyebrow and Xander’s glare melted into guilt, as he decided whether to explain or not. 

“Ben’s being an ass,” Xander grumbled. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I… might’ve sort of tried to ‘prevent’ you two from getting together back in the day.” He heaved a sigh. “‘Cause I knew he was too immature for you,” he reasoned. 

“And I was a super mature teenager,” Letty said, nonplussed. 

Xander leaned his head to the side. “I wouldn’t say so,” he said carefully. “I don’t know, I just didn’t think it would go well. You and I were good friends, and Dom’s always been such a blockhead.” 

Letty snorted. “That’s my _friend_ you’re talking about, you know,” she said sarcastically. 

Xander raised a brow and grinned, “And he’s lucky for it.” 

“Okay,” Ben pressed, “but tell me more about this whole friendship deal. Is that endgame do you think?” 

Letty picked at her cuticles for a moment, frowning slightly. She hadn’t let herself consider moving forward with Dom _or_ nixing the whole idea. “I don’t know.” 

“I mean, do you want more than that?” 

Letty frowned deeper, kept her eyes on the nails. “I really don’t know.” 

Out of her peripheral, she could see Ben and Xander exchange a glance. “Do you think he wants more than that?” 

Letty sighed, allowing a more raw reaction than she’d meant. She sounded tired and sad, and she knew that that would kill the friendly conversational tone they had going. “I think he wants the old Letty back.” She scratched at her cuticles now. 

There was a long pregnant pause before Xander leaned forward. 

“I doubt that,” he said lamely, clear that he wanted to say something better than that, but at a loss for words. “You know he’s had a crush on you since we were thirteen?” 

She glanced up at him solemnly, forlornly. Saying her thoughts out loud made her sadder than she expected. She wasn’t blind-- she had seen the way Dom looked at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention, when he _let_ himself linger on her. Dom was sweet, caring, attractive, and interested in a version of her that no longer existed.

Xander, picking up on how her thoughts raced, reached across the table and grabbed her hands where they scratched at each other. “You aren’t the same person from ten years ago, or twenty, or damn near thirty years ago when he fell in puppy love with you.” Xander sighed. “I don’t think he’d be in love with that thirteen year old girl, though.” 

She pinched her brows together and pursed her lips. 

“Yeah, but there was history there, between us, and it’s gone now. We might as well be strangers.” She sighed again. 

Xander met her gaze steadily, looking frustrated at her. He squeezed her hand. “That’s why I’m here, right?”

\--

Xander insisted on one last stop before the went home.

He directed her a couple miles north of the city limits, found a shack on the beach and got them milkshakes. They sat on the hard packed sand just below the tide line. 

Letty’s milkshake was peanut butter, and she focused on swallowing around the thick sticky ice cream for a good ten minutes before she noticed just how slow Xander was eating. His eyes were far away on the horizon, and his milkshake was less than half way eaten. His hand gripped the plastic spoon, hovering over the shake.

It took him another thirty seconds to realize Letty was looking at him. He grinned at her and took a big scoop of the shake, a little bit dribbling over his chin and he wiped it away with a slightly more bashful grin. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” she said, knocking her shoulder against his. 

He gave a breathy laugh and took another scoop. He shrugged one shoulder, knocking against hers in return. “Just thinkin’. Spent a lot of time here as a teenager.” He leaned back on a hand and looked down the beach’s length, at the surfers and kids running into the waves. “Hasn’t changed as much as I thought it would.” 

She followed his gaze, frowning. “You hated it here, didn’t you?” She asked it softly, almost hoping he wouldn’t hear. 

He blinked at the sun hanging low in the sky before looking at her over his shoulder. “Not here, no.” He pressed the bottom of his shake’s cup into the hard sand and brought his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “Just home.” 

He puffed out a deep breath and suddenly laid back, stretching his arms out above his head. “Tell me about how you remembered me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic concept is about to turn 3 years old, so like. i just want to reassure everyone that this fic will be finished even if it's the last thing i do


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